The rift in the leadership ranks of the Cuban American National Foundation may be more than a generational changing of the guard, even more than a struggle for the
 hearts and minds of Miami's exile community.

 It may represent the emergence of an entirely new domestic Cuban-American image.

 The enduring posture of an obstinately isolated and self-focused Cuban community is crumbling at last. With the CANF shake-up, South Florida is witnessing the
 ascendancy of a new Cuban-American leadership intent on improving the community's image and nurturing better relations with its non-Cuban neighbors.

 CANF spokeswoman and radio commentator Ninoska Pérez Castellón resigned last week, accusing Chairman Jorge Mas Santos of betraying the foundation's mission established by his late father, Jorge Mas Canosa.

 It's no surprise that the exile old guard is annoyed with Mas Santos' departure from the stubbornly hard-line strategies of the past.

 The surprise is that Mas Santos absorbed the blow from Pérez Castellón without flinching. His message: Go ahead and leave if you want to.

 Mas Santos and other Cuban-American businessmen are keenly aware of the need to recast the image of Cuban Americans as engaging and accessible to others,
 something the early exiles never considered necessary.

 The Elián González crisis painfully dramatized how the Cuban community's social isolation had led to lack of empathy and support from other Americans, CANF
 Executive Director Joe García told me.

 ``The `We're right and everyone else be damned' attitude was fine during the Cold War, but it [became a problem] when our policy perspectives no longer had the
 comprehension of the nation,'' García said.

 Aside from twisting political arms in Washington, the old CANF of Mas Canosa never saw itself as having a domestic mission at all.

 Mas Canosa intensely loved America, yet was often dismissive, even openly scornful, of Americans.

 That was forgivable up to a point: He had a right to be proud of Cuban immigrants' accomplishments.

 But that pride blinded Mas Canosa to the value of turning his neighbors into friends. Only money and the political leverage it bought in the fight against Castro mattered to him.

 Mas Canosa's give-no-quarter stridency established a tense and often cold relationship between the Cuban community and its neighbors. He had no interest in our world, and we were welcomed into his world only on his terms.

 His attitude, regrettably, became the exile prototype, and many Cuban Americans of his generation adopted it without challenge. His minions came to believe, as he did, that while America was great, Americans were superfluous. Good personal relations with others simply wasn't a priority.

 The exile community thus erected a type of gilded cocoon for itself, featuring remarkable prosperity amid social isolation. Cuban-American self-sufficiency, a textbook model of immigrant economic progress, had a calamitous downside: Few Cuban immigrants were exposed to the norteamericano  mind-set, and never understood it.

 The early exiles mistakenly believed that the righteousness of their political cause alone was enough to merit the respect of American citizens.

 They never appreciated how highly native-born Americans value comity and fellowship in establishing relationships. We're not inclined to like a person -- or listen to his politics -- until we've shaken his hand, broken bread and stared him in the eye to probe his character.

 Mas Santos and his peers grew up as Americans and know the American psyche. That awareness could change the image of Cuban Americans -- and open doors long closed to their South Florida neighbors.

                                    © 2001