CARDENAS, Cuba – Cuba’s youngest celebrity rides his bike to school past one-story peach and sea-green stucco homes in a coastal city much like any other in communist Cuba.

The celebrity lives at the end of the city’s main street, near an old stone fort converted into a cafe. He is Elian Gonzalez, the castaway who came to symbolize the divide between Miami and Havana.

It’s been nearly six years since Elian was found clinging to an inner tube off the south Florida coast, sparking a high-profile custody battle between his relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba, who ultimately won his son’s return.

Today, the 11-year-old boy is stepping back into the spotlight, speaking publicly to crowds and an American news network for the first time since his return to Cuba.

Cuban exiles in Miami opposed to Fidel Castro’s government say the island’s leader is using the boy as a pawn. Supporters say Elian was saved from the “Miami mafia” and is lucky to live under Cuba’s socialist system.

Elian lives with his father, stepmother and younger half-siblings in a home protected from the press by security guards. Authorities also keep journalists from Elian’s classroom at his middle school, where children in mustard-color uniforms walk between two-story, blue-and-white buildings on a cozy open-air campus.

But while Elian has been sheltered in Cardenas, with Cuban officials saying they want the boy to have as normal a life as possible, he has been paraded at official events, often sitting in the front row next to his father, Juan Miguel, now a Cuban lawmaker.

His visibility increased this year. In April, he gave a speech before thousands, marking his first public address at an event open to the foreign press.

Elian thanked Cubans and Americans for fighting for his return to the island at the televised event, which commemorated the fifth anniversary of his being snatched from his Miami relatives’ home by armed U.S. federal agents.

In August, Cuban television showed Elian under Castro’s arm as the Cuban leader celebrated his 79th birthday. Last Sunday, the boy called the president a friend and father in an unprecedented one-on-one interview aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He also said he has a girlfriend and hopes to become a computer scientist.