A father and his daughter, originally from the Isla de la Juventud, became a sensation on TikTok after posting a video of a dance performance in the streets of Switzerland. The 44-second clip was published on February 26 by Alexander Martinez under the username @alex.martinezz77 and has garnered over 184,000 views, 15,800 likes, 536 comments, and 363 shares.
The video was recorded in front of a car dealership called Autowelt Schweiz, with a silver Rolls-Royce in the background and European residential buildings featuring green shutters. The contrast between the Caribbean dance and the Swiss urban environment was precisely one of the elements that fueled its virality among the Cuban community abroad.
The father, 48 years old, appears in an oversized white t-shirt, loose beige pants, a black cap with the letter "A," and dark sunglasses. His daughter, 26 years old, is wearing a black leather jacket, loose gray pants, white sneakers, and a decorative gold belt. The two exhibit ease and rhythm in every step, oblivious to the European cold or the passersby around them.
"Oee, here are the people from the Isle of Youth," wrote Alexander Martinez in the video description, clearly proud of his roots. The clip also references dancers @Jaison Rodríguez Tápanes and @esruben, using hashtags such as #repartocubano, #padreehija, #cubanosporelmundo, and #cubanoseneuropa, firmly placing it within a well-established trend among the diaspora.
The reparto is an urban music genre that originated around 2007 in the Havana neighborhood of Arroyo Naranjo, considered 100% indigenous to Cuba. It blends reggaeton with traditional Cuban rhythms such as timba, rumba, and guaguancó, and its characteristic dance—featuring hip movements and street steps—has become a symbol of cultural identity that Cuban emigrants carry with them to every corner of the world. The first recognized exponent of the genre was Elvis Manuel, who began experimenting with it at the age of 18. Starting in 2015, artists like El Taiger, Chocolate MC, Jacob Forever, and El Micha propelled it to massive popularity.
This video is part of a broader phenomenon frequently seen on social media: Cubans in Europe sharing their culture through Cuban dance on TikTok. Cuban painters in Tenerife, an Italian woman dancing reparto with her Cuban boyfriend, or a Cuban and a Peruvian dancing on Gran Vía in Madrid are just a few examples that have followed the same viral pattern in recent months.
The implicit humor of "taking Cuba wherever you go," combined with cultural nostalgia and a sense of identity pride, largely explains why this type of content resonates so deeply with the Cuban community abroad. The Cuban diaspora accumulated since 2021 has surpassed one million people, and Europe—especially Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and France—has received a significant portion of that exodus.
The Isle of Youth, a special territory of Cuba located south of the main island, has also contributed emigrants to this diaspora, and this father and daughter are an example of that: two Cubans who, thousands of kilometers away from home, found in the neighborhood the best way to remember where they come from.
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