A young Cuban mother shared a powerful testimony on TikTok where she explains, with simplicity and honesty, the reasons that lead her to consider emigrating from Cuba and those that, despite everything, make her want to stay in the country. In the video, posted on the account @gelylaflaki, the young woman begins by saying: “Three reasons why I would like to emigrate from my country, and three reasons why I would not want to emigrate. I have more than three reasons, but I will share the three most important ones.”
Her first reason for emigrating is related to her daughters' future: “Because I want them to study what they want, to work, and to see the fruits of their labor when they do so, so that they have a future that they don't have here.” The second, she explains, is the desire to live with the essentials: “I would like to live with the basics without having to call it luxury.” And the third is the possibility of fulfilling dreams: “Because I would like to be able to achieve dreams that you can't fulfill here.”
However, she also shares the reasons that keep her on the island. The first is the pain of leaving her family behind: “Leaving family behind would be sad.” The second is the sense of community that still exists in Cuban neighborhoods: “Here, we are very family-oriented; it’s not like in other countries where neighbors don’t know each other.”
The third reason holding her back is the fear of the unknown: “I would be really afraid, truly scared, to confront a reality, because I know that not everything is rosy, that there are problems in every country, and because I know I will miss my family a lot, and that despite all the difficulties we face here, I will miss my country.” Finally, she concludes her testimony with a blend of hope and resignation: “I still hold on to the foolish hope that this will get better someday.”
In the comments on the video, numerous users expressed empathy and support, sharing similar experiences regarding the decision to emigrate. Some reminded her that life outside of Cuba also comes with challenges, but acknowledged that economic stability brings "peace and tranquility." Others encouraged her to keep the faith and not lose hope for a better future for her daughters.
The testimony adds to other previous videos where the same young woman has shared the daily struggles of raising her daughters in Cuba, marked by shortages, blackouts, and a lack of basic services. In a prior post, she confessed that many times she has had to give them "just rice" and that it saddens her when her daughter sees toys and cannot buy them because the money is only enough for food, as she mentioned in another viral video.
He also described the ordeal of domestic life amid power and water outages: “At one moment you have electricity and no water; then the power goes out and the water comes back,” he recounted in another testimony where he denounced the precariousness of basic services. In May 2025, he expressed his desperation at being unable to feed his daughters during a blackout: “My daughters haven’t had lunch and I don’t have money to get them a pizza or a yogurt,” he said in another of his videos recorded during the electricity crisis.
In another recording, she expressed her exhaustion from the daily routine marked by scarcity and uncertainty: “Every day you wake up with that worry of hurry up and do the laundry because the power might go out,” she recounted in a previous testimony where she described the constant stress of raising her daughters amid blackouts and extreme heat.
The stories of this mother reflect the reality faced by thousands of families in Cuba, caught between the need to survive and the desire for a better future. In her words, frustration, fear, hope, and love for her daughters intertwine, in a country where daily life has become a test of endurance.
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