May 23, 1976

By Terri Shaw

During the recent wave of violence in Florida's Cuban exile community, three bomb incidents have been directed against the staff of a lively Spanish-language magazine called Areito.

Named for an equally lively Cuban folk dance, the quarterly attempts to give exiles a sympathetic view of Cuban life today.

"The press of the (exile) community is monolithic and conservative," said Lourdes Casal, a member of Areito's editorial board. "If you read the Miami newspapers you get the impression that all Cubans are poised with their knives in their mouths ready to retake the island."

Like many of the young exiles associated with Areito, Casal actively worked against the Castro government until she left the country after the attempted U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

Casal, now a professor at Rutgers University, said in a recent interview that during her 15 years of exile she went through a "very complicated process" of reassessing her attitude toward the government of Fidel Castro, finally coming to admire it. She is one of a small number of former opponents who have been allowed to return to Cuba for brief visits, which she has described in Areito.

Despite criticism from other Spanish-language papers in Miami, Areito's editors believe that more exiles are willing to take a new look at the Castro government than is generally believed.

Casal pointed out that a recent Miami Herald survey found that 47 per cent of the exiles interviewed did not oppose resumption of U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations.

"Even among those who opposed relations;" she added, "30 per cent said they would go back to Cuba for a visit."

She estimated that perhaps a quarter of exiles under 25 might support Areito's position of "an openness toward Cuba and a sympathy with revolutionary goals," if not all of Castro's methods. Most older exiles still oppose the Castro government, said Casal, who is in her mid-30s.

While most exiles who work on the magazine are younger than Casal, they seem to have undergone a similar emotional and intellectual process of gradually becoming more sympathetic to Castro.

When asked why they changed their minds, several mentioned their involvement in anti-Vietnam war activity. One said the Vietnam war and the blaring invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 made him realize that "it's not easy for developing countries to carry out transformation without someone stepping on the process."

Marifeli Perez-Stable, 26, a graduate student at the University of Florida, compared the interest among young exiles in learning about today's Cuba with "the search for cultural identity" among other ethnic groups.

"When I speak at universities," Casal said, "Cuban students come up to me afterward and ask, 'How did you get there? How can I go?' "