BY CAROL ROSENBERG

 A Herald poll on little Elian Gonzalez's future shows a sharply divided South
 Florida: Cuban Americans overwhelmingly believe the 6-year-old shipwreck
 survivor should stay in Miami. White non-Hispanics and blacks believe, with far
 less conviction, that the boy should go to Cuba to live with his father.

 The results were somewhat surprising, pollster Rob Schroth said, because Cuban
 Americans were even more strident than expected and non-Cubans were more
 sympathetic to the father.

 Illustrating a nearly unanimous community, a staggering 88 percent of South
 Florida Cubans interviewed in a telephone poll want the child to remain here. A
 scant 5 percent want him sent back to his father in Cuba; 7 percent were
 undecided on the issue or declined to respond.

 Everyone else favored his return. Forty-eight percent of non-Cubans in South
 Florida said he should go home; 35 percent want him to stay. Seventeen percent
 chose neither.

 On one side was Jose Dartayec, 55, a 1983 Cuban emigre who lives near Miami
 International Airport:

 ``He has to stay because Cuba is not a normal country where the government
 respects human rights, and the government takes responsibility for the welfare of
 the people. Cuba is a disaster, and the whim of just one man. You can't
 disconnect this case from politics. . . . You have to respect the wishes of the
 mother.''

 On the other side was Dorothy Brown, 53, a self-described ``black American
 through and through'' in Carol City:

 ``I think he should go as long as his father wasn't abusing him. . . . Most fathers
 don't want their children. This father does.'' She also dismissed the child's own,
 hesitantly expressed wish to stay here at an impromptu press conference
 organized by his cousins. ``Who prompted the child to say that?'' she asked.

 800 POLLED

 The Herald hired Schroth & Associates of Washington, D.C., to carry out the
 bilingual telephone survey of 800 adults in Miami-Dade and Broward counties on
 Thursday and Friday -- after the State Department announced it would contact
 Elian's father to advise him how to assert his parental rights.

 Released Saturday, it is the first scientific study of public opinion on the case and
 had a margin of error of almost 4 percentage points.

 Fishermen found the child off Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 25, about 48 hours after the
 boat he and 13 others were on capsized and sank while they were trying to reach
 the United States from Matanzas province. Elian's mother and 10 others were
 killed; a man and woman also survived.

 Since then, the child has lived with relatives in Little Havana, and Fidel Castro has
 transformed the boy's plight into a cause celebre, turning out hundreds of
 thousands to protest across Cuba.

 Among those who want him sent back to Cuba, white non-Hispanics were most
 supportive of Elian's father: 49 percent favor return, against 34 percent who want
 him to stay. Among blacks, 46 percent want him to go home, compared with 31
 percent who want him to stay.

 Non-Hispanics were less likely to express an opinion. In all, 17 percent of white
 non-Hispanics said they had not decided or declined to answer. Among blacks,
 23 percent gave no reply.

 Non-Cuban Hispanics responded more like white non-Hispanics and blacks than
 Cubans: 47 percent said the child should stay, while 44 percent said he should
 go; 9 percent declined to choose.

 `THAT'S HIS FATHER'

 Puerto Rican Juan Perez, 72, of Hialeah Gardens was one Hispanic who said the
 child should go home. ``That's his father. I think he should go to his father,'' said
 Perez, a great-grandfather, who moved to South Florida seven years ago. ``I think
 they're making a political issue out of this. Maybe I'm wrong, but in the long run
 he's going to miss his father.''

 Schroth called the non-Cuban results ``a little surprising'' because South
 Floridians have a ``strongly negative attitude toward Castro.'' But in this case, the
 numbers indicate that ``many non-Hispanics believe that parental rights are more
 important.''

 Cuban sentiment was more predictable, he said.

 But politicization of the case by Castro may have galvanized Cuban opinion even
 more: ``Support level for any issue above 80 percent in polling is relatively rare . . .
 and 88 percent of Cuban Americans want Elian to remain here. That's an
 extraordinarily high number.''

 Cuban emigre Armando Fernandez, 70, put it this way in a follow-up interview
 Saturday: ``He's got to stay in Miami. He's got to be free forever.'' Even if his
 father wants him back, ``the father is a slave. Leave the boy right here where he's
 going to grow up in freedom, to become a free man.''

 Fernandez said he wasn't surprised by poll results that show a divide between
 Cubans and others. ``It's not important for [them] whether he should stay or go,''
 he said.

 NON-CUBAN HISPANICS

 Schroth said non-Cuban Hispanics in South Florida are increasingly voicing
 independent views from Cubans. Colombians, Venezuelans, Central Americans
 and other Hispanics living in South Florida ``just don't track with Cuban
 Americans the way they used to.''

 Geographically, less-Hispanic Broward would send the boy back, while heavily
 Cuban Dade would let him stay.

 In Miami-Dade, 58 percent said he should remain and 31 percent said he should
 go; 11 percent were noncommittal. In Broward, 45 percent said he should be
 returned, 36 percent said he should stay, and 19 percent were noncommittal.

 Overall, 49 percent of South Florida said the boy should remain, while 36 percent
 said he should go home. Another 14 percent couldn't or wouldn't respond.

 Otherfindings:

 Young Dade was less certain that the child should stay than older Dade. Among
 Miami-Dade residents 50 and older, 62 percent said he should stay, while that
 figure dropped to 49 percent among people 49 and under.

 South Florida women were more emphatic than men about Elian staying. Among
 women polled, 53 percent favored him staying, compared with 44 percent of men.

 Other nonscientific surveys, mostly by Miami radio and TV stations, have yielded
 wide-ranging results. Cuba has also undertaken an Internet-driven worldwide
 survey on the boy's situation, saying the results will be published in the official
 government newspaper, Granma.
 

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald