“It’s not the be-all and end-all,” said Joe Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and currently a Democratic candidate for Congress. “But it marks a turning point. There’s no question that the Cuban revolution is nearing its conclusion.”

The diversity of reaction seemed to reflect, in part, an evolution of Cuban-Americans’ posture toward Cuba over several decades. While Mr. Castro is still disliked among Cuban-Americans here, attitudes have softened and diversified with time.

As first-generation Cuban immigrants who fled the country in the face of Mr. Castro’s rise have passed away, they have been replaced by new generations of Cubans, many of whom were born in the United States and, unlike their forebears, have no burning desire to return to the island and reclaim what their families abandoned when they fled.

“It depends how you came from Cuba, it depends how many people you have in Cuba,” said Raquel, 68, a Cuban-American who owns a store in Little Havana. She asked that neither her last name nor the name of her store be published for fear that her political opinions might anger some Cuban-American hard-liners and cost her customers.

“Every family has different feelings, every family is different,” she continued. “The people who came in the ’60s think one thing, the people who came in the Mariel boatlift in the ’80s think another thing, people who came a year ago and are going back think another thing.”