Letter: Reader has a unique Cuba perspective

Wednesday, May 10, 2000 | 9:32 a.m.

One year ago my mother and I went to Cuba in order for her to visit her brothers she hadn't seen in 28 years and for me to see the country I was born in. After spending two weeks in Cuba I could not wait to come back home to the comforts we all take for granted, i.e., hot water, indoor plumbing, decent transportation, passable roads, electricity, medication and toilet paper, not to mention freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.

This experience helped me to appreciate what I have and to be grateful to my mother for having the courage and the decisiveness 28 years ago to take her two small daughters out of the country. Leaving Cuba was hard for my mother, since she had to leave behind her father, her husband and her siblings, but she had to do what was best for her daughters. She never again saw her father, who died two years after we had left.

This situation with Elian brings back all of the sacrifices that had to be made in order for us to be in America. I vividly recall while in Cuba how everyone that I saw and spoke to had no hope, no ambition and lived in a constant state of fear. I could have been one of them. It is my hope that Juan Miguel Gonzalez will consider what is actually best for his children and will realize that sometimes in life we have to surpass our fears and make the decisions that have to be made for the future of the family.

TAMARA RUX