BY SARA OLKON
Ask Irving Louis Horowitz about Miami, post-Elian, and the soft-spoken
sociology
and political science professor from Rutgers University imagines
a city with fewer
Cuban Americans and more community apathy.
Horowitz, lecturing at Florida International University's Graham
Center Ballroom
on Tuesday night, predicted that Miami will lose about 20 percent
of its
Cuban-American population to the rest of the country.
The diaspora into the American mainstream, he said, will be pushed
in part by a
disillusionment with a divided city that no longer feels like
home.
``I know this goes against the grain -- that the Elian case has
united the
Cuban-American community,'' said the exile advocate and author
of Cuban
Communism.
He said the rifts, both global and personal, will live on as Cuban
Americans
remember how specific individuals, including family members,
aligned themselves
during the crisis.
He said Cuban Americans in Miami are reconsidering what it means
to be
``American.'' This reevaluation means taking on a harsher, more
realistic view of
their place in the country, he said. The fact that many will
vote Republican in
November is ``just the tip of the iceberg.''
``Cuban Americans will vote with their feet and join different
parts of America,'' he
predicted.
Horowitz told the audience of 40 -- students, professionals and
older couples --
that the unifying cause of dismantling the Castro regime is no
longer a motivating
force for younger generations. That will be another force pushing
them away from
South Florida, he said.
Commenting on their assimilation into the United States, he said
it was unlikely
that many Cuban Americans would ever move back to Cuba, comparing
it to the
probability of blacks making a mass exodus to Africa or for Jews
packing it up
and moving to Israel.
``Future Cuban Americans will be more critical of the United States,
but also
more integrated in the country.
``Cuba will be a nice place to visit.''
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald