BY JOHN DORSCHNER AND DAMARYS OCAÑA

 At first, there were the arguments. Now there are the silences.

 Since Elian Gonzalez was taken from Little Havana two weeks ago, civic leaders have talked about a need for healing, but interviews with dozens of South Floridians from different racial-ethnic communities reveal an anger so deep that healing seems a long way off.

 Yet, they say, it's frequently an anger that festers without words.

 After tempestuous arguments, many these days are keeping quiet, hiding in their cubicles at lunch rather than risking further discussions. Even at the pastoral center of the Archdiocese of Miami, says Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Wenski, ''we have people working in the same office that aren't talking to each other.''

 Rosa de la Cruz, a Key Biscayne arts patron and activist in the fight to keep Elian Gonzalez in Miami, has been astounded by the lack of support from her non-Hispanic friends in the arts. ''Nobody calls. Not a word from them when there is all this Cuban-bashing. It's been like a silent night. . . . I've given a lot to the people in these museums, but now I'm never going back to them.''

 Denise Mackens, a black math teacher in South Dade, is one of the silent ones who believes Elian belongs with his father. ''I don't say anything at work because it just gets you into trouble.'' Still, she marched in the ''pro-American'' parade in South Dade, walking alongside whites waving the Confederate flag, a symbol she detests. ''This is a greater cause than the Confederate flag,'' she said.

 Alex Stepick, a sociologist at Florida International University and co-author of City on the Edge, a 1993 look at the racial-ethnic divisions in Miami, believes tensions run as deep today as they did in 1980, when 125,000 immigrants streamed in from Mariel, and the McDuffie riots left 18 dead.

 There's one big difference with the Elian case: ''Here all we have is a symbolic idea. That can be good and bad. In terms of material resources, it's easier. You don't need to send in the National Guard to quiet riots. You don't need to spend millions in federal funds to relocate people or rebuild an area. But, on the other hand, what do you do now?''

 In South Florida, the vast majority of Cubans believes the paramount issue is Elian's chance to live in freedom. The vast majority of non-Cubans believes the paramount issue is Juan Miguel Gonzalez's right to raise his son.

 ELIAN IS SYMBOL

 But, in a broader sense, Elian is merely the symbol for a deeper divisiveness that has festered for years.

 Wenski believes that what's happening here is similar to the situation in Israel, where there is ''systemic misunderstanding,'' a fundamental difference in values between Jews and Palestinians.

 The anger is often expressed visually. All over Miami-Dade, cars and trucks have American or Cuban flags fluttering from antennas -- wordless symbols of political stances.

 Many Miami Cubans hear exhortations to ''send them all back'' and feel as though they've never been accepted, even after 40 years. Many blacks feel that once again -- even on the 20th anniversary of the McDuffie riots -- they are ignored. And many white non-Hispanics feel disenfranchised.

 Kim Lopez, a 28-year-old Cuban American who works in the epidemiology department at the University of Miami, has spent a week eating at her desk and avoiding the employee lounge. ''I didn't want to hear any discussion. How do you explain it to them? They're so strong in their opinion and I'm so strong in mine.''

 CONCERN FOR CITY

 Jim Weber, a white non-Hispanic who owns a five-employee executive search firm, is so disgusted he's thinking of moving his company. ''I really believe in Miami as a truly international city, but it's inwardly imploding. The majority has just been focused on Fidel Castro as the core single driver of public policy.''

 Bettina Abascal, 23, hasn't talked to one of her best friends in a week, a non-Hispanic who thinks Elian should go to Cuba with his father.

 The case has even split families. Carmen Lopez, a Colombian American and part-time clerk, got into a shouting match with her husband, Jorge Lopez, a Cuban-American lawyer. Their solution: Stop talking about Elian.

 Worried about office tensions, the United Way sent a letter to 200 Miami-Dade corporations suggesting four counseling groups that could serve as mediators to diminish tensions in the workplace.

 Pat Tornillo, president of the Miami-Dade teachers union, says he's hearing about so many arguments in the public schools that a ''human-relations task force'' needs to be brought in.

 ''We're getting reports of friends not speaking to each other. Reports of arguments. People being given the silent treatment,'' Tornillo says. ''This is involving teachers and administrators, and then it's carrying over to the students.''

 VIEW OF TENSIONS

 Stepick, the FIU sociologist, says he had almost finished a new manuscript about racial-ethnic relations in Miami when the Elian case began. He had found that, after years of division, the tensions here had diminished so that they approximated those of other large cities, like Los Angeles and New York.

 With one difference: ''Miami is the only one where the immigrant groups have taken power.''

 In fact, it's the perceived power of Cubans that appears to fuel the anger of non-Cubans. If nothing else, the Elian case has kindled a kinship between Miami-Dade's two largest minorities -- white and black non-Hispanics.

 ''Strangely enough, it has united us,'' says Bishop Victor T. Curry, a black leader and pastor. ''When you saw blacks and whites in the protest in South Dade, it was very unexpected.''

 ''We've had problems with whites, but this is a time that we feel united,'' says Mackens, 34, who teaches at Redland Middle School. ''I've lived here my whole life. I dare not have kids. For one thing, if you're not bilingual, you don't have an opportunity.''

 FLAGS AT PARADE

 Eight days ago, Mackens joined a South Dade parade with several thousand whites, many waving American flags and a handful carrying Confederate flags. The parade was organized by James Cross, a 58-year-old Homestead heavy-equipment operator who has lived here for 47 years.

 A self-described redneck, Cross is proud of the Confederate flag -- ''it's part of our history.'' He also has a criminal record that includes spending 364 days in jail for three counts of ''sex offenses against a child,'' described in law-enforcement records as ''lewd and lascivious fondling.''

 Cross says that he was innocent and pleaded guilty only on the advice of his lawyer. That happened in 1985, when Janet Reno was Dade's state attorney. Now he embraces law and order -- and Reno. ''I thank God every night for that lady.''

 He gives no thanks, however, for Cuban immigrants, whom he discusses in the most extreme terms: ''I don't see one Cuban who has enough [courage] to go back there [to Cuba] and fight. Obviously, their country is not worth fighting for.''

 It is precisely this kind of talk that has the Miami Cuban community so upset. ''After 40 years building up this community, they talk about us like this,'' says Carlos Saladrigas, an entrepreneur and leader of Mesa Redonda, a Hispanic leadership group.

 ''The hatred that has come out -- it makes me sick, and it makes me fearful. . . . You see that Confederate flag; that's a symbol of hatred. I think those attitudes have been there a long time, and they're just coming to the surface.''

 'DIVISIONS ARE DEEP'

 Armando Codina, a developer and longtime civic leader, says, ''The hurt and polarization is a lot deeper than it was during Mariel. These divisions are deep. I have very deep roots here, and I'm hurting.''

 Rosa de la Cruz certainly is feeling that hurt. She and her husband, Carlos, chairman of the University of Miami's board of trustees, have one of the area's top art collections in a wing attached to their Key Biscayne house.

 As the Elian case unfolded, she joined with others in Mothers Against Repression in trying to keep the boy here. She was hit with pepper spray during the federal agents' assault on the Gonzalez house.

 Now she is dismayed that all her art community friends, who frequently ask her for donations, didn't step forward to help.

 ''I've been very disappointed by my friends, or who I thought were my friends,'' she says. Even as the attacks against the Cuban community grew, they kept silent. ''I think it's very racist, a hatred inside of them. . . . They never loved us.''

 At one point, she says, she called Bonnie Clearwater, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, to which the de la Cruzes had been major benefactors, and asked her to write a letter to The Herald, not taking sides in the custody case, but just defending the worth of Miami Cubans.

 ''Look, say something nice about us!'' she says she asked Clearwater. ''She turned me down. She said, 'I have to ask my board.' But she never called me again.''

 A DISCONNECTION

 Because of such nonresponses, de la Cruz says, she is dropping out of the arts scene. ''The art museums, I will never go back to them. I realize they don't care about me at all.'' She says she will make no more contributions, and she no longer wants her extensive arts collection going to a local museum. She no longer even wants to be buried here. ''I realize I don't belong here. Now I want my ashes thrown into the sea.''

 Clearwater says she can't recall what kind of letter de la Cruz asked for. ''I feel truly deeply about this. This has been sad for everyone. I've been sympathetic with her. But we are a museum for all the people, and as an employee of the city of North Miami, I report directly to the city manager, and so I can't take an independent action as an official of the museum.''

 Meanwhile, some of the most intense anger is being felt in the black community. Liberty City activist Georgia Ayers says she is withdrawing her support of Mayors Joe Carollo and Alex Penelas for the stances they took against federal authorities.

 Ayers, 81, says she got into a shouting match at Miami City Hall. When Hispanics yelled at her to shut up, she says, she told them to ''go to hell.''

 ''My grandmother first bought property here in 1904. I was born here, a home-grown tomato. They say, 'Feel my pain.' Well, they don't know my pain. I know what happened here. As a black person, I've suffered.''

 Curry says the anger is long-felt. ''For the most part, many African Americans feel shut out of the economic development process.''

 TALKS CONSIDERED

 As such talk has intensified, many Miami-Dade leaders from the Cuban and non-Cuban communities have begun recommending group discussions to heal the rift. Ayers, the black activist, says she's willing: ''If you want to sit down, you tell me your story. I'll tell you my story. I'm not here to keep a divisive attitude.''

 But Wenski, at the archdiocese, believes such talks would be premature because ''the catalyst has still not run its course.'' Until the courts are done with the Elian case, the issue will still be raw and intense. ''We're still kind of in the eye of the hurricane,'' he says.

 ''There is no question that our community is hurting,'' says Edward T. Foote II, president of the University of Miami. ''But I do not believe that we are forever Balkanized. . . . Miami is a tough and resilient town.

 ''Our obligation is to make some good come out of this. No one else is going to do it for us.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald