A video shared by the Argentine media Agarrá la Pala shows the moment when a Cuban, accompanied by his grandson, walks through the aisles of a supermarket for the first time and reacts with astonishment at the abundance of products.
During the recording, the man watches in disbelief as he sees fruits, vegetables, and other staple foods that are often scarce or difficult to obtain in Cuba.
"Look at the avocados, look... look at the garlic here," he comments while walking through the aisles, clearly impressed by the amount of merchandise available.
The reaction reaches its most emotional point when the man exclaims, "Help! As the saying goes, without words," while gazing at shelves filled with fruits and bread.
"I wonder what they do with so much stuff here... Who buys it?" she adds with surprise.
In the video, a woman can also be heard encouraging him to make the most of the experience.
"Whatever you want to try, whatever you want to eat, buy it without any problem," he says while asking him if he is happy. "Very much," the man replies.
Scenes like this have become common on social media in recent years. Videos of Cubans getting emotional, sometimes to the point of tears, upon entering supermarkets in other countries for the first time often go viral quickly due to the stark contrast with the reality faced by the population on the island.
One of the most recent cases occurred when a Cuban posted on TikTok a video of her father crying on his first day in Spain upon seeing the shelves filled with food, a clip that garnered over 2.2 million views in less than 48 hours.
Similar recordings have also been spread in countries like the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the United States, where Cuban migrants react with disbelief to everyday products such as meats, fruits, cheeses, or soft drinks.
Behind these scenes, there is a prolonged food crisis in Cuba. For decades, basic foods have been subject to rationing systems and heavy state intervention, while agricultural production has declined and imports are constrained by a lack of foreign currency.
The result is a persistent scarcity that forces the population to rely on informal networks, long queues, or state-run currency markets, with prices that are inaccessible for most wages and pensions.
That economic situation, combined with the lack of opportunities and the widespread crisis in the country, has driven the largest exodus in Cuba's recent history.
It is estimated that between 2021 and 2025, around two million Cubans will have emigrated, seeking in other countries the living conditions they do not find on the island.
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