By Madeline Baró Diaz
Miami Bureau

HIALEAH · It was graduation day in Cuba for Sandra Martín's daughter, but instead of hugging and congratulating her in person, Martín was sitting in her Hialeah office, arranging trips for other people who wanted to go to the island.

Martín, who owns a travel agency, left her daughter Lisandra, 17, in Cuba when she immigrated to the United States three years ago and has made annual trips to see her.

She said she could not bear to go three years without seeing Lisandra but she will have to once the Bush administration implements stricter travel regulations at the end of this month.

"The family, for me, is something very big," Martín said. "We were raised with a very big concept of family, that family is above anything else."

In a Cuban cafe in nearby Doral, Army Sgt. José Nadal, who came to the United States as a boy in 1960, discusses how he was booted out of a recent gathering of people who oppose the travel restrictions. He brought up the issue of free elections in Cuba, he says, and was escorted out by security guards as more than 100 people chanted Fuera! Fuera!, "Out! Out!"

During his more than 40 years in the United States, some of Nadal's relatives, including his maternal grandparents, have died in Cuba. But neither he nor his parents returned for the funerals. Nadal hasn't set foot in Cuba since he left and doesn't expect to while Fidel Castro is in power.

"If they're going for pleasure, shame on them," he said of frequent travelers to Cuba. "I wouldn't do that to help prop up any dictatorship in the world."

Nadal and Martín represent two different, but widely held, attitudes in the Cuban-American community.

Political refugees who came in the 1960s and 1970s weren't allowed to return, and, by the time they were, many already had brought their closest relatives to the United States or those relatives had died.

Those who came during and after the 1980s appear to have stronger ties to the island. While Cubans continue to leave because they feel persecuted, many also admit economics played a larger role in their decision. They've used the ability to travel back and forth to maintain contact with those left behind.

A Florida International University poll released this year found that 68 percent of respondents who arrived since 1985 thought there should be unrestricted travel to Cuba. More than 70 percent of those who came between 1959 and 1974, however, agreed with restrictions.

In May, President Bush unveiled a plan intended to bring about a transition in Cuba. The measure reduced the frequency of family visits to Cuba from once a year to once every three years. The policy, which will go into effect June 30, eliminated aunts, uncles and cousins from the list of people Cuban-Americans can obtain permission to visit.

That outraged Lillian Manzor, associate chairwoman of the University of Miami's Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, who left Cuba in 1968 when she was 10 years old. She still has close relatives on the island, including the aunts who raised her mother, she said.

"It is for this family that I've gone back numerous times," Manzor said. "We cannot allow for the U.S. government to redefine what the Cuban family is or should be.''

José Martín, Sandra Martín's husband, said his aunt raised him, and she's one of the people he supports with the money he sends to Cuba.

Martín travels to Cuba each month primarily to see his autistic son, José Reimar Martín, 24, who can't speak or hear and has heart problems. Because of his son's medical issues, Martín is able to get special permission for those trips from the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees the travel regulations. Those predictable visits, he thinks, help his son behave.

"I am his only means of support," José Martín said. "I will go through China, through France, if necessary [to see my family]."

But the Martíns, who own several travel agencies specializing in trips to Cuba, don't know whether the new rules mean it will be tougher to get permission from the Treasury Department.

"We really do not know what influence this law will have, how it will be applied," Sandra Martín said. "We just don't know."

Nadal said he understands people need to visit sick or dying relatives. In fact, his wife is hoping to visit her ailing father.

But he takes issue with Cuban-Americans visiting Cuba as tourists or who plan celebrations such as quinces or weddings on the island.

"I'm aware of some people that go to Cuba four or five times a year," Nadal said. "A lot of those people, from what I understand, are newcomers, and they are receiving government help, taxpayers' money, and if they're going to go three or four times a year, that's helping a totalitarian government which is on the list of threats to the United States."

That's why Cuban-Americans who favor tough measures against Castro support the travel limits.

"These resources have not been used on behalf of the Cuban people and to help the Cuban people," said Sylvia Iriondo of Mothers Against Repression. "They have been used to instill more repression, to incarcerate, to execute and to remain in power at the expense of the Cuban people."

But Sandra Martín said that by going to Cuba, she's making a difference for her family.

"My daughter needs me," she said. "She does not understand these laws. She does not understand why her mother can only go to see her once every three years."