Not their fathers' Cuban-American politics

"I don't know about politics," she says, a clipboard in hand and cellphone wire dangling from her ear. "I'm here to work."

A recent poll by Mr. Bendixen for a group of businessmen called the Cuba Study Group found that more than 50 percent of Miami's Cuban-American population comprises these newer, more moderate migrants. That's been key in changing the community's political tenor.

And then, in 2000, there was Elian Gonzalez, the little boy who survived the trip from Cuba to Florida, though his mother perished in the ordeal. The furor raised by the Cuban-American community when the US sent the little boy back to his father in Cuba alienated many in the US, including key political allies in Washington.

"It was an embarrassment to all of us," says Joe Garcia, CANF executive director. "It was a collective archetypal event that we all reacted to through emotion and not with the cold calculation that politics requires."

Mr. Garcia doesn't judge the community, noting that many identified deeply with Elian's plight. But Garcia does consider the event a lynchpin in the transformation of the Cuban-American community's mind-set, a prompt for soul searching and a political spur to younger Cuban-Americans.

"It's the responsibility of our generation to continue the battle and struggle that our parents and grandparents led," says Fred Balsera, a political consultant and trustee of the CANF whose father was one of the founders. "But obviously, being American born and raised, and not having the direct scars that an exile has, our perspective is different."

But these demographic and attitudinal shifts have taken a toll on Cuban-American unity. Two years ago, a group that held to the traditional line broke off from the CANF and created the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC) It continues to oppose dialogue with Cuba and advocates cutting off remittances and banning travel.

"The weakest link in Castro's column is the economy," says Luis Zúñiga, executive director of the CLC. "If you cut it off, it collapses."

Mr. Zúñiga believes the original foundation has "lost direction" and the new leaders' underlying goals are economic. Garcia dismisses that notion and counters that the hard line has not worked for the past 40 years, so it's time for an alternative.

The larger political impact is unclear. While polls show the community split, the traditional conservatives vote in far larger numbers than the newer migrants and younger Cuban-Americans. That disparity could be a critical factor when Washington weighs its response to the Cuban crackdown.

Many analysts, like William Leogrande at American University, doubt the administration will cut off remittances. But others also doubt this administration will expand commercial, economic, and political ties to the country as President Nixon did in opening up relations with Communist China.

"Those who surmise that President Bush is likely to emulate President Nixon on China have the courage of their ignorance," says John Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonpartisan business group. "It's not likely the administration will risk what they know to be a certain voting block for an unknown."

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