No, we're not referring to Elian (who is busy on the Democratic party fund-raising circuit these days), but to Mario Miguel Chaoui, member of a college baseball delegation from Cuba, who decided two weeks ago at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport that he would much rather stay here in America than return to his Communist homeland. His uncle Arturo met him at the airport, asked his nephew if he wanted to defect, and two days later, Mario Miguel was in Miami explaining his decision to seek political asylum. "It was very difficult for me, but I had to do it. . . . It was a decision to have liberty, to reconcile with my family here." By family, he means his uncle and his grandmother -- both his parents and a younger sister were left behind in Cuba.
Some of his former teammates have called him a traitor, but Chaoui allows that they "had to say that." Meanwhile, Rev. Dennis Dease, the president of the University of St. Thomas (who hosted the Cubans), seemed mystified by the defection, saying, "This is his own choice. I respect that. But I've been to the country and I see that people can be happy there. It's a great time of change in Cuba." Easy for him to say.
Chaoui, who turns 21 this week, said he intends to "learn the language, perfect it . . . and, of course, the dream of every Cuban ballplayer is to play in the major leagues, to play professional baseball. But first comes study."
This is a heartwarming human interest story about an uncle who believed his nephew had "a better future in this country," though a future that meant leaving behind his immediate family in order to live in freedom. And it's a story you'll be hard-pressed to find in print, despite its seeming topicality. Unless you live in the Twin Cities or Miami, you'd have to scour the major newspapers to read about this defection. There was a single mention in the Washington Post, buried on the second page of the sports section. And how many mentions in the New York Times? Zero.