We do not think there is anything inappropriate about it. Cuba's Pioneers were created on the model of groups in the former Soviet Union. Children join when they enter school and wear the uniform to school through the 12th grade. Children who refuse to join, for religious or other reasons, are ostracized. So are their parents.
Pioneers learn at camp to assemble and disassemble military rifles blindfolded.
From eighth grade through 10th grade, they spend 21 days a year doing some type of agricultural work planting, picking or cutting crops such as tobacco, citrus, potatoes and tomatoes. In 11th grade and 12th grade, they live at boarding schools in the countryside, and their days are split between studies and farm work. This is one enormous apparatus around the child who lacks any freedom to express himself. Nevertheless, the INS and the Justice Department insist that Elian's father should be allowed to take him back to Cuba. Elian's mother drowned trying to reach America with him, and he was rescued off Florida after floating on an inner tube for two days after their boat sank.