BY ELAINE DE VALLE

 Books are what got Berta Mexidor Vazquez and Ramon Humberto Colas Castillo in trouble in their native Cuba.

 The husband-and-wife team, who founded the Project for Independent Libraries in 1998, have been persecuted by the Cuban government, their jobs taken away from them, their daughter kicked out of school and the family evicted from their home. Late Thursday, they finally arrived at Miami International Airport with dreams of a new start.

 Welcoming them were more than a dozen supporters, friends and old neighbors who took them in when they were thrown out of their homes.

 The family's troubles with the Cuban government began when they filled a small space in their Las Tunas home with books and called it the Felix Varela Library.

 They meant to provide a place where neighbors could read forbidden works of literature, history books printed outside the communist-ruled island and magazines and other publications not available at state-run libraries and schools and discuss any subject outside of the government's control.

 By August 1999, as more than a dozen other living room libraries popped up all over the island, their reading center had been raided by Cuban police, and the couple and their two children were evicted from their home.

 Until last year they lived in the living room of Magdelivia Hidalgo. When she took the family in, her husband, Elio Peña, lost his job as an air-conditioning and refrigeration technician.

 All jobs in Cuba are controlled by the government.

 After Hidalgo and Peña came to the United States last year, the family moved in with Mexidor's family in a rural town called Amancio Rodriguez.

 ``They can't live in peace there. It's horrible conditions. It's a small town -- the persecution is worse,'' Hidalgo said.

 One of the members of the welcoming party was Janisset Rivero, executive director of the Cuban Revolutionary Democratic Directorate, an exile organization that supports Cuba's independent libraries.

 She said the group was going to find a home for the family for the next few weeks. Jobs would be found for Mexidor Colas and schools would be arranged for 15-year-old Talía and 10-year-old Zeus.

 ``In Cuba, the children were threatened and harassed at school,'' Rivero said. ``They have suffered a great deal of repression.''

 Rivero and other activists say the couple has been harassed for nearly four years and detained several times for days without formal charges. Colas was detained once for a week and his wife didn't know where he was, Rivero said.

 Even as they left Cuba, the government continued to hound them, she said. They were scheduled to arrive in Miami at 11:45 a.m., but were detained at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana by state security agents, Rivero said.

 ``All their papers were in order. They had already boarded the plane and were taken off the plane,'' she said. ``That is the extent of the repressive design the Cuban
 government has had on them. They were kept guessing until the last moment.''

 Rivero -- whose organization has found a place for them to live while they get their feet on the ground -- said state security wanted to separate the family and send some on a later flight to Cancún, where they made the connection to Miami, arriving at 9:21 p.m. on American Airlines flight 2158 from Cancún.

                                    © 2001