The girls are children of Cuban medical professionals living in Miami who deserted their posts in various nations where the Cuban government sent them to help spread ideology and earn income for their cash-starved homeland.

But the price for desertion was higher than the families believed possible: The Cuban government is denying the little ones permission to leave, even though they have U.S. visas that would allow them to come here.

The word ''change'' seems to spark a range of diverse emotions in South Florida. For some, the word represents hope, an opportunity to adjust course with the goal of achieving a better outcome. For others, it evokes alarm, uncertainty, a rejection of past efforts. Merriam-Webster doesn't offer much help in its own definitions, which include: to alter as well as: to transform. So you can appreciate the complexity of using the word when applying it to Cuba policy, something so many in this community care deeply about.

Then this son of a black Kenyan dad and a white Kansas mom gets 53 percent of the vote in a country where black Americans are only 12 percent of the population. He wins over the suburbs, grabs the youth vote, sweeps the Hispanic vote, attracts about half the white and elderly vote and overwhelmingly claims the Jewish vote despite Hussein for a middle name.

Explain that to 11 million Cubans -- the majority black or mestizo -- who have been spoon-fed the regime's ''racist U.S. imperialists'' propaganda for five decades.