As a child in Cuba, Alina Fernandez Revuelta used to pray that Mickey Mouse would be allowed to return to television. Her father had yanked the imperialist rodent, replacing him with Russian cartoons and broadcasts of the occasional execution.

The 51-year-old daughter of Fidel Castro told students at The Ellis School in Shadyside yesterday that she had begun absorbing the emerging Cuban dynamic by age 10, when people were asking her to help them.

In 1993, her own daughter facing life away from her at a state boarding school, she slipped them out of the country, disguised and with the false papers of Spanish tourists.

Ms. Fernandez spent her life in a day yesterday, an exhausting but "gratifying" microburst of attentive and admiring teenagers plying her with questions. She said that unlike most people in this country, the students at Ellis "seem to be pretty well-informed about what is going on" in Cuba and Latin America.

"My students are very interested in politics," Spanish teacher Jack Gaddess told Ms. Fernandez during a lunch conversation in Spanish at which seven girls munched chips demurely and watched their guest keenly as she spoke, her copper-red hair in a ponytail, her fingernails painted dark red, her hand occasionally slashing the air.

Her mother was not married to Fidel Castro when she gave birth to Alina, but he recognized her and he visited them often, sometimes with gifts and lavish attentions. Other times, his neglect was painful, she recalled. Her mother, who raised her alone, remained in Cuba and still lives there.

Ms. Fernandez said her life mimicked that of many Cubans. "My whole generation has the same situation, almost everyone who started with me: People are in the United States, waiting, and people are in Cuba, waiting."

Late last month, Fidel Castro officially handed power to his younger brother, Raul. Ms. Fernandez said that set off a scramble in the ranks.

"There are men of Fidel and men of Raul," she said, "and now that Raul has the horse by the reins," Fidel's people are all trying to get in Raul's favor.

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Venezolanos are leaving their country and settling in Miami, now better able to identify with Cubans who left their country, she said.

Ms. Fernandez started her career as a model and later was public relations director for a fashion company in Cuba. In Miami, where she lives, she is host of a daily call-in radio show, interviewing newsmakers and discussing Cuban politics and history. She said that although older U.S. Cubans staunchly support Republicans, young Cuban-American voters do not blame today's Democrats for the Bay of Pigs and seem to favor Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"The Republicans are saying, 'We don't speak to dictators,' but they do" have their business interests dealing quietly in Cuba, she said. "I prefer a lack of hypocrisy."

During her day at Ellis, students asked her whether her father led the revolution wanting to be a dictator. She said she remembered him as "a romantic fighter." People like that are vulnerable, she indicated: "Probably, he fell in love with power."