It is 1976. Miami's Cuban exile population is growing, and with it, the militancy of the anti-Castro Cuban community. The US continues its naval blockade of Cuba, continues to have no diplomatic relations, forbids its citizens to travel to Cuba, and does not permit any American companies to do business there with the tiny island 90 miles from its southern shore.

Cuban refugees continue to brave shark-infested waters in often tragic attempts to reach freedom. Now and again a handful of voices in the US suggest the time has come to end the impasse between the two countries, that memories of Castro's 1959 Communist Revolution are fading here. Few Cuban-Americans take this position, however. Few would dare to dissent. When they do, the consequences are dire. One man who speaks out in Miami has his car bombed and loses his legs.

It is 1990.

Much has happened over the years but there is hope among some that a dialogue and exchange between Cuba and the US can occur. Communism is collapsing, and no one takes Cuba seriously as a threat. Castro's days are finite, if not ending imminently.

The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, located on a residential street in Miami's Little Havana section, decides to open an exhibit featuring Cuban artists. The twist is that these artists still live in Cuba and are perceived to be pro-Castro. The city's exile community protests, but the museum insists the exhibit will go on as planned.

The museum is bombed. Today, the museum has disappeared altogether from its former neighbourhood, a local community organisation in its former building.

As the Elian Gonzalez case - the little boy found floating in a raft after two days at sea last November, his mother and others drowned after a failed attempt to reach US shores from Cuba - has captured national and international attention, the widely held perception is that Miami's 800,000-strong Cuban exile community is all of one passionate mind about the dispute; let the little boy stay with his Miami cousins, let him see his father, perhaps, but do not allow his father to return to Cuba with his son at his side.

That may or may not be the case. If it is not, a number of US politicians, including Vice President Al Gore, who has broken with President Clinton and taken the position that the boy should remain in the US, may have miscalculated how thoroughly they needed to ingratiate themselves with a politically powerful community.

"The intimidation factor is horrendous," said Howard Simon of the American Civil Liberties Union, a national group. "Regular Cubans are afraid to speak out because of the hard-liners."

Ground zero for the Cuban-American hard-liners is, at this moment, Little Havana, a working-class Miami neighbourhood an area as far from the glamour and glitz of Miami Beach as you can imagine. The main street in Little Havana is Calle Ocho, a boulevard that runs its length.

One might as well be in Cuba; the street is lined with colourful shops, puestos de frutas (fruit stands), limpiabotas (shoe shiners) and cafetines (pavement coffee windows). Salsa music blares from most stores. It is not an area imbued with subtlety. Outside a medical office building flies a banner announcing "Urologia. Impotencia". This used to be considered a dangerous area and while it is now safe during the day, gringos as well as locals steer clear at night.

A few blocks off Calle Ocho the footpaths become lined with heavy orange and black electrical cables, leading to white television satellite trucks parked in driveways and on front lawns. This is the modern architecture of a media event.

Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle, and his family live here in a small, cream-coloured one-storey house, with aluminium awnings and a chain-link fence. The houses here are small, Spanish-Mediterranean style pastel-coloured affairs, surrounded by palm trees and pink bougainvilia vines, hibiscus trees and Chevrolet trucks and trailers. The sun shines most of the time, but even when it is not hot here, and it is mostly hot, the air feels heavy and humid.

A group of demonstrators has taken up a semi-permanent position about 60 feet from Lazaro Gonzalez's house, behind a police barricade that is only sporadically policed. (By some estimates some 60 percent of Miami's police department is of Cuban descent; they are not, to understate it, being heavy-handed in their dealings with the demonstrators.)

Contrary to some reports, there are not hundreds here. Most days, instead, a hardcore group of 20 to 25 stand vigil, holding placards that say "Pray for Elian".

A group of older women on hunger strike are gathered under a blue tent. One elderly man's job is to carry a white cassette player in one hand and a battery-powered megaphone in the other. The two props in tandem blare the Cuban national anthem over the scene.

The melody is accented by the beeping of reporters' mobile phones. There are more reporters and cameras here most days than demonstrators. The reporters are gathered under white tents.

Although the demonstrators' numbers can swell into the hundreds when developments break or when the news goes live to air, the scene is generally more cozy than dangerous.

A yellow plastic slide and play area has been set up for Elian just beside the house, behind the chain link fence. The cameras have a clear shot to this area, and photos and videos of a six-year-old happy in his new surroundings have been broadcast around the world. Elian waves at onlookers, and they wave back. There is an undeniable visit-to-the-zoo aspect to the exchanges.

Lino Meneses, a Cuban immigrant, has brought his 11-year-old son Jesus here on this day to see the festivities and voice support for Elian to remain in the US. "I have been here for 21 years," Mr Meneses says in Spanish. "Elian should stay here. He will be free here."

But what about US law? What about the proposition that the little boy should be reunited with his father who lives in Cuba and has expressed a desire to pick up his son and return home?

"Elian has become a symbol. He is a symbol of Castro's end. Castro is using him," says Mr Meneses.

"I feel bad for Elian," pipes Jesus.

At a car rental agency a few miles away, Carlos de la Rionda is on the phone negotiating spring break plans with his 16-year-old son. "He is a problem. He wants to go to clown school, work in the circus. Now my daughter, she is different. She is in medical school," Mr de la Rionda says proudly.

Mr de la Rionda has been in Miami for 40 years since he escaped Cuba. He understands the emotions surrounding the Elian case, and supports the proposition that the child should be allowed to remain in the US.

Like other Cuban exiles, Mr de la Rionda talks about repression in Cuba under Castro's dictatorship, a situation that exists today as much as ever. Under Cuban Communist law, a child is the property of the state. Religion is officially banned. Dissenters are jailed and harassed. Freedom of the press does not exist. The economy is in shambles, so much so that food shortages are serious, even though subsidised by the government.

The picture of Cuba today, as described by experts and academics and people like Mr de la Rionda, is by any measurement dreadful. But even Mr de la Rionda decries the politicisation of Elian's case by all parties.

"This should have been settled right away, somehow," he says. "It should not have been allowed to go for five months. I must tell you I think the father is a coward. He knows it is better for his son to stay here and live in freedom. He should have said that, do what is best for his son and take the consequences. Yes, Castro would probably put him in jail. But I would have done that for my son. Now all the politicians are involved in this and everyone has forgotten the child."

The politicians may indeed have forgotten the child - although the phrase "We must do what is in the best interests of the child" is de riguer for each side's press releases - but they have not forgotten Florida's electoral importance.

The fact is that US law is clear on the matter; the boy should be reunited with his father. But it is an election year and Florida is a critical state in a close presidential election. Its governor is Jeb Bush, brother of Republican Party candidate and Texas Governor George W. Bush. The Cuban community usually votes Republican, and "W", as the candidate is called, early on took a position siding with the Cuban exiles on the Elian case.

Democratic candidate Al Gore, mindful that President Clinton won 40 per cent of Florida's Cuban vote in 1996, decided that taking a position against the community there might be political suicide. So, to the outrage and consternation of Democrats and law professors, he broke with the administration.

Will it do him any good? Will his position move the Cuban Americans away from the Republican Party? There is no way to know. Because a diversity of opinion in this matter is not permitted by the leaders of a community that arrived in the US to escape repression.

When a handful of counter demonstrators holding placards suggesting that Elian's father should be permitted to return to Cuba with his son arrived at the house weeks ago, they were physically attacked and whisked to safety by Miami police. None have dared return. Their voices, like that of Elian himself, are silent.

Now, as Elian's father Juan Miguel Gonzalez meets officials in Washington, the demonstrators have vowed to form a human chain and prevent the father from reclaiming his son. Lazaro Gonzalez, the uncle whose family has cared for Elian, has so far refused to turn over the boy.

The scene in Miami is not expected to get any prettier in the next few days.