Approximately 60 percent of Americans nationwide feel Elian Gonzalez should
 be reunited with his Cuban father, a position that surely disappoints exiles in Miami.

 Yet here in South Florida, a Herald/NBC 6 poll found that 76 percent of white
 non-Hispanics, and 92 percent of black non-Hispanics, express that sentiment.

 The gap indicates the presence of a dynamic here that leads those who live
 closest to Cuban Americans to be even less  sympathetic toward their cause.

 Is this statistical evidence of anti-Cuban hostility in our community, and, if so,
 why?

 With such a large Cuban presence in South Florida -- on the order of 800,000 --
 non-Cubans here should be more familiar with the oppressive conditions inside
 Cuba than Americans elsewhere.

 In our midst are people who have been held in Fidel Castro's prisons for daring to
 demand freedoms we take for granted.

 The private aircraft shot down by Castro's military jets over international waters
 four years ago took off from a South Florida airport. Four South Florida residents,
 including three U.S. citizens, were killed.

 Many of the 14,000 Pedro Pan children sent alone to this country by their parents
 to escape Castro's indoctrination camps four decades ago have settled here.

 With so much direct exposure to the Cuban experience, one would expect
 non-Cuban South Floridians to be more hesitant than other Americans about
 sending Elian back to Cuba. Yet the opposite is true.

 It seems likely that some non-Cubans here who say they want Elian returned do
 so just to spite a community they don't like.

 It would be easy for Cubans to cite the poll as a simple matter of racism -- as a
 couple of readers did this week in e-mail messages they sent me. That, of
 course, would justify Cubans responding in kind, by displaying increased
 contempt for non-Cubans. We would then be locked in a destructive spiral of
 worsening interethnic hostility that would not bode well for our future.

 A better alternative would be to use the poll as a wake-up call.

 Racial animosity never occurs in a vacuum -- there is always a history behind it.
 At the risk of oversimplification, our history is this: Non-Cubans resent the
 powerful economic, social and political machine that Cubans built here -- one that
 virtually excludes them. Cubans, justifiably proud of their achievement, feel little
 obligation to invite others to the party.

 Elian Gonzalez's plight has upset the local detente. Cubans find themselves
 appealing for solidarity from people they have largely ignored. Non-Cubans,
 bombarded by the passions of a community they resent, have turned a cold
 shoulder to exile appeals.

 Earlier in their exodus to Florida, Cubans had a golden opportunity to win the
 empathy of their new neighbors. After all, Americans -- black Americans in
 particular -- tend to side with the oppressed.

 But the exiles never really tried to win over their non-Cuban neighbors -- possibly
 because they believed their visit was only temporary, expecting Castro would
 soon fall.

 It's still possible for Cuban and non-Cuban South Floridians to establish genuine
 solidarity -- but it won't be easy, since the roles of the players have changed.

 Cubans now are the dominant cultural force in Miami-Dade County. It is up to
 them to decide that there is something to gain from better relations with
 non-Cubans, and then reach out to them.

 Non-Cubans must then be willing to accept the olive branches, if and when they
 are offered.

 Or we could continue on as we have -- as ethnic communities living in the same
 town, yet on different planets.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald