The Cuban singer Yoslyn Alemán reunited with his mother this week in Mexico, in a reunion that sparked both emotions and laughter among his followers.
After some time apart, mother and son reappeared together on social media with the complicity and humor that made them a viral phenomenon.
A first video on Alemán's account showed the moment when they embraced in Mexican territory.
The scene, simple and unpretentious, marked the return of a duo that knew how to transform Cuba's daily shortcomings into social satire.
However, the emotion didn't last long. True to their style, mother and son quickly returned to the irreverent tone that defines them.
In one of the later videos, Yoslyn took her mother to a supermarket and led her straight to the toilet paper aisle.
Surrounded by filled shelves, the woman seized the opportunity to deliver one of her cutting remarks: she said that she would send some rolls to Miguel Díaz-Canel, whom she claimed must be “scared out of his mind” these days.
The comment, laden with political irony, reminds us why this duo managed to connect with thousands of Cubans both on and off the island: their humor is not an escape, but rather a critique wrapped in spontaneity.
The origin of the viral phenomenon: The "Team Hunger"
The story began in March 2023, during the height of the World Baseball Classic.
While the Cuban regime promoted the slogan "Team Asere" to support the national team, Yoslyn -a singer from the group Máxima Alerta- recorded her mother explaining the different "teams" that were circulating online.
"The blonde Team from Puerto Rico; the asere Team, which is Cuba; the banana Team from the Dominican Republic; the samurai Team, the Japanese, and the USA Team, which is me," he elaborated jokingly.
The woman's response was immediate and devastating: “There isn't a tin of oil, a tin of rice, or a tin of meat here. There aren't even any timbales. Do you know what team we belong to? The hunger team. Stop messing around.”
The scene starkly and naturally encapsulated the contrast between official propaganda and the reality of scarcity faced by the populace.
The bag in front of the news broadcast
Weeks later, in April 2023, Yoslyn's mother became a trend again.
This time she appeared in front of the television, with an open bag, as the news broadcast from Cuban Television began.
He was getting ready to "catch" the foods displayed on the screen. His goal was to "fill it with what they say there."
Amid laughter, she expressed her desire to obtain seaweed croquettes, purslane oil, banana, and malanga—products that are often abundant in television reports but are scarce in real life.
Her son, laughing heartily, asked her if she had lost her mind. She denied it. The scene once again resonated with thousands of Cubans who feel estranged from the triumphalist narrative of the official media.
Humor against the crisis
Since then, the duo has released other representations depicting everyday situations on the Island. In one of them, a woman visits a hospital due to a cold.
The doctor prescribed antibiotics, but immediately afterwards started asking her to bring a needle, syringe, cotton, and alcohol to be able to inject her.
"I dropped the ball," she replied before getting up and leaving.
The scene documented humorously highlights the shortages faced daily by many Cubans in understocked hospitals and pharmacies.
The lack of gasoline, the difficulties in accessing dollars at Cuban banks, and the shortage of food have been other topics addressed by mother and son, always approached with satire.
Now, the reunion in Mexico not only marks a personal moment for Yoslyn Alemán and her mother, but also the return of a duo that transformed humor into a means of protest.
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