Elian Gonzalez Photo: What Does Elian Gonzalez Look Like Today?

A New Photo of Elian Gonzalez Has Been Released

A new photo of Elian Gonzalez has been released showing the now 16-year-old all grown up and wearing an olive-green military school uniform while attending a Young Communist Union congress in Havana over the Easter weekend. The recent photos of Elian Gonzalez were posted on a Cuban government website on Monday April 5. ABC has a slideshow of Elian Gonzales photos through the years.

Elian Gonzalez whose father is Juan Miguel Gonzalez elected to Cuba's parliament, is a popular political symbol in Cuba and his birthday on December 7 (although Wikipedia says December 6) is celebrated every year.

Elian Gonzalez became the subject of worldwide media reports when he was found floating off the Florida coast in a small boat, after his mother and twelve others left Cuba when he was five and tried to make it to Miami. His mother did not survive the trip along with ten others. Gonzalez said he was put in an inner tube by his mother's boyfriend and he fell asleep; when he woke up he never saw his mother again.

He was given to relatives in Miami, including his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, but was returned to his father in Cuba in April 2000.

The Communist Party of Cuba has a youth wing called the Young Communist League and that is one of the meetings that Elian Gonzalez was attending when the most recent photo of him was taken.

This party is the current ruling party in Cuba and says it is the 'leading force of society and of the state.'