A visit to the Elian Little Havana museum
A one-story house in Little Havana that immigration agents raided early one morning in April 2000 has become a museum to commemorate the operation.
It was no ordinary immigration raid. Agents stormed the house to seize Cuban child rafter Elian Gonzalez, then six and in the custody of his Miami relatives who lived at the house.
An exclusive photo by Associated Press photographer Alan Diaz of the moment when an armed agent demands the crying boy from a family friend captured the raw emotion of the raid for posterity.
A large frame displaying the photograph is now the centerpiece in the very room of the Little Havana house at 2319 Northwest 2nd Street where the agent seized Elian from family friend Donato Dalrymple.
The house is now a museum, open to the public every day after noon. The room where Elian was seized and the adjoining room where the boy slept are largely kept intact, as they were when Elian lived in the house until immigration agents raided it on April 22, 2000.
The house was in the headlines again Friday when Elian’s Miami great-uncle and great-aunt, siblings Delfin and Caridad Gonzalez, called a news conference to express their anger at presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama.
They said they were upset that two of Obama’s advisers, Greg Craig and Eric Holder, had played a role in the seizure of Elian and his return to Cuba subsequently.
Craig, a lawyer, represented Elian’s father in the custody battle against the Miami family branch. Holder was deputy attorney general at the time immigration agents seized Elian.
The photos, taken by El Nuevo Herald photographer Roberto Koltun, show landmark spots at the house including the room where Elian was seized and his bedroom, shown by his Miami great-aunt, Caridad.
HOW RIDICULOUS !!!
Posted by: carlos | June 22, 2008 at 07:26 PM
saw the video of "tio"; no habla ingles, he has no right to come down on obama; go back to "bootiful cuba", you freeloader! a disgrace to the cuban community, loser to the max!
Posted by: biff | June 22, 2008 at 09:06 PM
Your 15 minutes are up. Go back into obscurity.
Posted by: PerezHilton | June 22, 2008 at 09:42 PM
I hope this museum has up-to-date material too, including footage of the recent ceremony when Elian joined the Communist Youth Union.
Posted by: Richard Cheeseman | June 22, 2008 at 11:57 PM
As much as I feel for the Cuban-American communities stance on Elian, the fact remains that he was taken away without his father's consent. This was not about politics, to me, this was about reuniting a child with his father.
Posted by: j2tharome | June 23, 2008 at 04:19 PM