Sen. Mel Martinez is patiently awaiting an end to the rain and wind of Tropical Storm Fay. The weather has been blustery all day at his Orlando office, but the Republican senator is not complaining. ''Let's just be grateful there's no wind damage,'' he says. ``We did get some flooding. But not too bad. And it's good for Lake Okeechobee.''

Fay wrought a bit of havoc with Martinez's schedule, but he'll be in Miami Monday -- which he hopes will be a sunny day -- to talk about his memoir, A Sense of Belonging (Crown Forum, $26.95). The book, written with Ed Breslin, is Martinez's story of growing up in Cuba, fleeing the country after the revolution through Operation Pedro Pan, which helped more than 14,000 Cuban children and youths escape, and his rise to become the first Cuban American elected to the U.S. Senate.

Martinez, who was 15 when his parents decided to send him out of harm's way, landed in Orlando with foster parents who had never met him. ''It was a beautiful action on their part that changed my life,'' Martinez says. ``It has had a profound impact on who I am.''

Martinez hasn't been back to Cuba since he left but dreams one day of taking his three children there.

``That is my most fervent hope. I'm desperate for the day I can take them. They're dying to go. I do hope in the not-too-distant future we can visit a Cuba that is more welcoming and doesn't have the current problems.''

Q:What was the impetus to write the book?

A: It's a story many people over the years have been intrigued by. Many conversations about it ended with ''You oughta write a book.'' But the real impetus was having the next generation in my family know the story of their family, and to tell other Cuban Americans what our life was like in Cuba and what it was like to come here as Peter Pan children. . . . Our generation who came from Cuba, we're getting older. And though it's remarkable how the younger generation of Cuban Americans maintains a connection to Cuba, their knowledge of life is different than ours.

Q:What are some of your best memories of Cuba?

A: The beach. Not a fancy beach; we didn't go to Varadero. This was just a beach where my grandfather had a house. There isn't going to be a tourist resort there anytime soon. We had such carefree summers, with a rowboat, a cast net and a fishing line, and that filled my days. It was so wonderfully idyllic. Another vivid memory is going with my dad -- he was a country vet, we'd call him a large-animal vet here -- to farms outside of town, to those thatched-roof, dirt-floor homes. And I have memories of wonderful Noche Buenas.

Q:When you became a father, did your parents' sacrifice really hit home?

A: Oh, yes. Right now my youngest son is 14 and turning 15 in a couple weeks. He's having a hurricane day out of school, and he's reading the book, . . . and of course I have older children, and as they reached the age I was when I came here, I think about it. I find it remarkable my parents had courage to do it. I don't know if I could.

Last night I did a book reading in Orlando, and a lady, a Cubana, started talking to me. She has a nephew or a cousin who I knew who was two or three years older than me. He got put in jail and spent 22 years there. That's the kind of thing that scared my parents. Things were happening that were so frightening. With me, they thought, ''He's not in trouble now, but in a couple more years. . . .'' They saw in me someone so defiant about the system.

Q:How did this experience shape you as a person and a politician?

A: It's a tremendously hardening experience. It makes you be an adult much too young, but it also makes you understand that people need help. Because of this, I am a compassionate person. I think as a politician I understand compassion and understand the need to help others. The help doesn't have to come from the government but from community activists, people who invest themselves to make someone else's life better. I've often wondered if there are people who would do that now, and I just had my question validated. My son just started high school with a young man of Haitian background, who is being helped by a family, much like I was.

Q:Your experience is the quintessential American dream: escaping persecution, coming here, working hard and succeeding. With anti-immigrant sentiments growing, has our dream changed?

A: I think it's still the American dream. Over time there have been moments in history that America seems less tolerant of immigrants, but I don't believe it's a prevailing view. That's a minority view. Even today, with the moments of intolerance one hears about, I believe the overwhelming majority of Americans want orderly immigration and don't want to open the borders, but they're filled with compassion and want to help others when they can.

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