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Now, Chovel worries about intolerance in the Miami Cuban community. "My parents did what they did so that we would not be indoctrinated in Cuba," says Chovel, who 10 years ago founded an organization of Pedro Pan kids to help needy children. "That made me extremely conscious of what it is to live in a democracy. To be confronted today by people who have come from Cuba and then don't defend the First Amendment, that is disturbing to me. What they are trying to do may have validity, but the way they go about it is wrong. They do the cause great harm."

Chovel, whose first husband was killed as an Army reconnaissance pilot in Vietnam, says Spanish-language radio commentators often make virulent attacks on more moderate Cubans. "Either you do and say exactly as I do or say, or you are a communist. That is the message," she says.

Cuban-American John de Leon, president of the Greater Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, actively defends the rights of those who insist on saying what they believe. But he wasn't always so liberal. De Leon's conversion came at Columbia University, where he went to obtain a master's degree in international affairs in 1990.

"My views were those of mainstream right-wing exile politics," de Leon says. "I was strongly in favor of the embargo. Then I took a couple of courses on Cuba at Columbia and it was a different perspective on what was happening there. Also the Berlin Wall was falling, the communist governments in Eastern Europe were in transition, but nothing was happening in Cuba. It was clear that the policies in place weren't working."

It was while he was at Columbia that de Leon went to Cuba for the first time to see for himself. It caused a crisis with his parents, who like many conservative exiles refuse to step foot on the island as long as Castro is in power. "It was a tremendous let down to them," he says. "But I wasn't going to let Fidel Castro determine if I would see the land of my ancestors. The trip opened a whole Pandora's box of issues for me. I understood the depth of my parents' feeling of loss because it is such a beautiful place. But I also still didn't agree with them on how to get it back. The embargo wasn't the way."

While de Leon believes that Elián should be reunited with his father, he also criticizes Reno and the INS for its heavy-handed dealings with the González family in Miami.

"I'm also sensitive about Cubans being seen as a monolith," he says. "People need to be less one-dimensional in their view of the hardline Cubans. They are easily caricatured as lunatics and they aren't lunatics at all. Those of us in Miami need to understand where everybody is coming from. We have to stop demonizing each other. It comes from the left, not just the right. We need greater empathy on all sides."
salon.com | April 7, 2000

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