Miami-area Cubans -- especially earlier immigrants who are citizens and vote -- tend to be more conservative than Cuban-Americans elsewhere, meaning that, nationally, most Cubans now probably support a loosening of restrictions, Bishin said.

Change in Opinion

The shift in opinion reflects the less hard-line positions generally taken by younger Cuban-Americans and more recent immigrants, he said. Fidel Castro's resignation as president may also play a role, he said.

The Gonzalezes, who lived in Miami before moving to the Inland area, said people with close family members still on the island are more likely to support greater travel.

A few months after Omar Gonzalez visited Cuba in 2005, his mother had breast-cancer surgery. U.S. law prevented Gonzalez from visiting her. Gonzalez said it was wrenching for him to be in Perris instead of by his mother's side.

Gonzalez doesn't understand arguments that travel to Cuba strengthens the government there. Companies from around the world invest there, and tourists -- including some Americans who travel to Cuba illegally, through Canada or Mexico -- already spend money there, he said.

"The law is pointless," Gonzalez said.

Rudy Ruibal, 81, said he hoped that after Obama eases travel and remittance restrictions, he'll lift the embargo.

The Castros have long used the embargo to blame the United States for problems Cuba suffers, said the Riverside man, who emigrated from Cuba in 1959. Cubans have always distrusted the United States because of U.S. military intervention in Cuba and U.S. support for dictators like Fulgencio Batista, whom Castro overthrew in 1959, he said. So it was easy for Castro to point to the embargo as yet another U.S. intervention.

"I always thought the embargo was the stupidest thing the United States could do," Ruibal said.