In the 1969 movie "Popi," Alan Arkin plays a Puerto Rican single parent living with two boys in Spanish Harlem. Working three jobs just to survive, he feels the boys slipping into what he terms a "cesspool."

Desperate for a solution, Abraham notices Washington gives exceptional benefits to Cubans leaving their island -- in fact gives them the royal treatment. So he concocts a scheme in which he takes his sons to Miami and sends them out to sea, hoping that they will get picked up by a friendly boat within a day. He's planning that they'll be seen as Cubans and adopted by rich Anglos.

But Abraham begins to worry when, after a day, he hears no word of the boys. He haunts the local bars, listening to TV news. Finally, consumed by guilt over forcing his boys to sea, he tries to drown himself ... only to hear that they've been rescued by Coast Guard, which had taken them to a local hospital, badly dehydrated and in critical condition.

The Miami Cuban community goes wild, hailing them as heros, and gifts and offers of adoption roll in. But the boys are unconscious, and doctors don't know if they will come out of the coma.

Now Abraham, fearing that the boys will die, and afraid that if they awoke, they would reveal his plot, goes through a series of antics to see the boys at the hospital.

And when they do awake, the younger boy tells the greeters that he hates his father, because he had told them drowning at sea was better than living in the sewer. Believing that the father was referring to Cuba and not New York, a lady tells him that he should love his father because he wanted to save him, that he was a great man.

In the end, the boys see Abraham. Consumed with love for their father, they chase him and give him away. Then a Cuban official tells him that the boys want him and not the rich life he wants for them, and that because of this, his plan would not work.

And so they all return to New York.

For those following the circus in Miami surrounding Elian Gonzalez, the parallels with Popi should hit close to home. Bonds exist between a father and a son that all the rationalization and bribery in the world will not loosen.

Despite all of the brainwashing evident in Elian's treatment, he'll ultimately bare the hurt of the rupturing of those bonds. Once the notoriety surrounding him has ceased and he becomes an ordinary young boy -- and his commercial value to relatives who had never met him until his tragic experience diminshes-- his memories of his father will increase. He'll no longer be showered with gifts or taken to Disney World on demand.

He'll be just plain Elian. Elian without neither mother nor father.

The irony of Elian's case does not escape many Mexican Americans or other Latinos ... or even Black Americans. Identifying with Abraham is not difficult for them. And they recognize the preferential treatment of Cubans entering the country without documents ... while literally thousands of Haitians, Mexicans and other Latinos are unceremoniously deported every week, most of them returned to economic circumstances far worse than Elian's.

When I visited Cuba this past July, the contrasts between it and my ancestral home of Mexico were striking. Cuba is a poor country, kept that way by a cruel U.S. policy that panders to political fanatics who yearn for yesteryear and dream of returning to the island to mismanage it once again.

No doubt that the economic boycott has hurt many young boys such as Elian, who was actually one of the more fortunate there.

But fact is that I didn't see the extremes that I saw in Mexico where poor native Americans beg and sleep in the streets of the capital. Truth is, some Mexicans live in luxury, vacationing frequently in Cancun and Acapulco and spending $200 a day just for a hotel room, while their compatriots earn a minimum wage of $3.50 a day.

I saw first-hand Cuba's extraordinary medical achievements -- a lower infant mortality than the United States, one doctor for every 250 Cubans ... and free universal free health-care. Cuba's literacy rate is higher than the U.S. -- students graduating from elementary school actually know how to read. And though Cuba is poor--its automobiles often relics from the 1950's--I could walk the streets of Habana at 4 in the morning and not get mugged.

Meanwhile, back here in the "land of the free" there's only one Latino medical doctor for every 22,000 Latinos. Getting into medical school is problematic without a physician for a father, or the funds to buy into a domestic or foreign medical school.

The United States boasts of a low level of illiteracy, yet educators know that functional illiteracy is widespread. Then there's the extremes, like the marked difference between the quality of minority schools and those in white neighborhoods. Witness that some 83 percent of the teachers in the West Valley are credentialed ... while it's under half in the inner city. Moreover, the "compassionate society" that takes the propaganda of Cuban-American expatriates so seriously won't give health-care to those without papers by law in California.

Then there's the irony that--while the Miami mob laments the fate of Elian if he's returned to Cuba--Latino and African-American first-graders in California have a better chance of going to prison than being eligible for the University of California system. Or that a woman of any nationality, whether rich or poor, is not as safe in any neighborhood as on the streets of Habana. (Frankly, women aren't even safe here on college campuses, where rapists have found a haven.)

Most sociologists say that one important predictor of future success is the relationship between father and son. Even agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service concede that the relationship between Elian and his father, Juan, is positive, and that Juan has a stable job and home in Cuba. There is no credible evidence that Elian suffered in Cuba.

Still, the Miami cabal wants to severe Elian from Juan based on their hatred of Fidel Castro. They maintain that a paternal great uncle who did not know Elian nor his mother before last November has more rights to Elian than his father or grandparents.

This is not rational . . . nor is it right.

What's so disturbing is that, in this circus atmosphere, the so-called free press has not looked into the background of Elian's Miami family (stretching the definition of family). What gives them the right to have a superior right to the custody of Elian than his father? Are they so much better educated? Do they have the resources to send Elian to college? If they love Elian so much, why parade him, wrapped in an American flag?

Hopefully, the cable stations will screen the film "Popi," so it can remind us of the plight of the Abrahams of this country. Perhaps then more people will appreciate the hypocrisy of politicos who weep for family values while keeping a child from his father. Meanwhile, the Miami circus will continue, a real-life movie without a Hollywood ending, a nightmare running excrutiating on and on and on . . . .

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Rodolfo Acuna hchsc003@csun.edu is a professor of Chicana/Chicano studies at California State University Northridge. He's the author of 13 books, including Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2000); Sometimes There Is No Other Side (1998); and Anything But Mexican: Chicanos In Contemporary Los Angeles (1996). This version of this article, editted by SeeingRed, is printed with the author=92s expressed permission. Permission to circulate and reprint this article is freely granted only if the Rodolfo Acuna is credited as author and www.SeeingRed.com as source.

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