A SLOW CHANGE IN CUBAN AMERICA.

Thousands of people are marching angrily through downtown Miami, waving placards, shouting slogans, linking arms, and blocking traffic. At one intersection, riot police fire tear gas to disperse the protesters. The reason for the heated emotions: a little boy.

From elsewhere in the country, the scene might seem a bit bizarre. But for many of the nation's 1.5 million Cuban-Americans, the dispute over Ellen Gonzalez is just one battle in the larger struggle between Communism and democracy. And to them, it is a deeply personal and emotional struggle.

Like Elian, many Cuban-Americans made the perilous voyage in makeshift rafts and leaky boats over the last 40 years, fleeing the Cuba of Communist dictator Fidel Castro. "His mother died at sea," says Marta Santana, who fled Castro's Cuba 40 years ago and has lived in Miami ever since. "He's living. She sacrificed herself to come."

Such views are particularly strong among older Cuban-Americans, many of whom were among the first to leave Cuba when Castro came to power 40 years ago. For decades, their extremely conservative and fiercely anti-Castro views have shaped American policy toward Cuba. Their most cherished goal: to oust Castro and to return to a capitalist Cuba. But even as they raise their voices over Ellen Gonzalez, a second generation of Cuban-Americans, often born in this country, has begun to question their elders' tactics, if not their goals.

A VIRTUAL CUBA

About half the nation's Cuban-Americans live in the Miami area, where Cuban exiles have re-created a virtual prerevolution Cuba, renaming streets, reactivating Cuban social clubs, and filling supermarkets with Cuban products. Cuban-Americans are the mayors of both the city and county of Miami. Over the years, hard-line Cuban-American groups have pressed the U.S. to adopt strong anti-Castro policies, including a failed invasion in 1961, several assassination attempts, and an economic embargo that prevents all U.S. trade with Cuba.

But in recent years, the hard-line coalition has weakened slightly. Some younger Cuban-Americans feel that the older generation has lost touch. And two small groups, Cambio Cubano, and the Cuban Committee for Democracy, advocate lifting the embargo.

"From a human standpoint, the embargo is killing people of hunger, not Fidel," says Eduardo Marquez, 30, who arrived in the U.S. in 1995. "People here think that in Cuba a group could get organized to take Fidel out. That's really easy to say with a full stomach."

On the pop music front, the generational divide is even more obvious. Up to now, anti-Castro militants have blocked most Cuban musicians from performing in Miami with threats of prostests and violence. So it was big news when Cuba's hottest pop dance band, Los Van Van, played there recently. A poll showed that Miamians 50 and older opposed the performance, while those under 50 supported it.

"These are different times," shrugs Cesar Pedroso, the band's pianist and co-founder. "Everything changes."