The last picture of Elian Gonzalez remembered in the United States was the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a terrified, crying 6-year-old in 2000, held by his uncle in a closet in his family's Miami home, menaced by a helmeted, goggled U.S. marshal pointing a submachine gun directly at him, after authorities ordered his return to his father in Cuba.
Today, Gonzalez, 21, is an engineering student in Cuba, engaged to be married, with dreams of one day returning to the U.S. for a visit and getting on Facebook,
the New York Post reports.
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Gonzalez and his fiancée, Ilianet Escaño, 22, even grabbed a chance to take their very first "selfie" together.
In a rare interview with ABC News, Gonzalez said, "To the American people, first I say thank you for the love they give me. I want the time to give my love to the American people."
In 1999, Gonzalez was rescued in the Atlantic Ocean after a boat carrying his mother and 12 other people capsized as they attempted to flee Cuba for the U.S. His mother and most of the others drowned and Gonzalez ended up with relatives in Miami.
His family members fought plans to return him to his father, Juan Miguel, but the courts ruled that Elian was to be sent back. He returned to Cuba to a hero's welcome as an iconic figure, and became a member of Cuba's Militant Union of Young Communists.
"Perhaps one day we could pay a visit to the United States. I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side, because we're so grateful for what they did,"
Gonzalez told ABC News.
He told ABC News, "I believe I live today [and] she’s [his mother] not here with me because she fought until the very last minute for me to survive. She was the one who gave life back to me at a time of danger."
"I was alone in the middle of the seas. That’s the last thing I remember," Gonzalez said.
"I remember when the boat capsized, when we fell in the sea. I remember when I was put on the raft and my mom was covering me and I was raising my head, looking around, and at some point I raised my head and I didn't see her again,"
Gonzalez said, Business Insider reported.
It's a very different story from the one
Gonzalez told CNN in 2013, when he blamed the U.S. for his mother's death and said, "Just like her, many others have died attempting to go to the United States. But it's the U.S. government's fault. Their unjust embargo provokes an internal and critical economic situation in Cuba."
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