ABSTRACT
In 2000, South Florida was ground zero for the most bizarre of political spectacles. The presidential election in November saw the unprecedented occasion of an electoral limbo so bitterly contested that it took the Supreme Court to intervene, as partisans fought over “hanging chads” and ballot recounts. It also saw the Republican party using the tactics of confrontational protest politics to press their claims. As bizarre as the Florida election was, however, the battle over Elián González was stranger still, though no less instructive of the contentiousness of U.S. politics at the dawn of the 21st century. At one level the story was simple enough: A mother and child are traveling in a boat that capsizes in a storm. Stranded at sea, the mother is claimed by the ocean, while the child survives long enough to be rescued by a passing fishing boat, on a national holiday (Thanksgiving Day) no less. It would seem quite obvious, based on these simple facts, that the child would be reunited with his surviving parent: his father. As Attorney General Janet Reno later put it, “The law is very clear. Clearly, a child who has lost his mother belongs with his sole surviving parent” (2000).
