The Cuban influencer and content creator Anita Mateu announced, with overflowing joy, that she received approval for her Spanish nationality application, an achievement she celebrated in a reel on Instagram that quickly went viral among her followers.
Anita recounted that the news completely took her by surprise while she was checking her email. "I submitted the application back in May of last year for 2025, and just now I was looking at my email and thought: 'What's this strange message from the government of Spain?' And when I read it carefully: 'Spanish nationality application approved.' And I was just like: 'Finally!'" she shared, visibly excited.
The wait lasted almost a year, but it was worth it. "It took many months, but well, finally it's here," she said with laughter.
The YouTuber, who lives in Galicia, obtained citizenship through the residency pathway, which allows Ibero-American citizens to apply after just two years of continuous legal residency in Spain.
Anita arrived in Spain approximately three years ago and obtained her residency as a digital nomad, an international telework visa that she has maintained as her immigration status until now.
The urgency of the wait had an additional reason: her residency was about to expire in May. "I kept saying, 'God, please let me receive my nationality, because if not, I have to go through the process again,'" she confessed.
With the approval in hand, Anita will be able to apply for her Spanish passport, which ranks third in the Henley Passport Index and provides access to more than 190 countries without the need for a visa.
"The Spanish passport is one of the most powerful in the world, and I was so eager to have that passport," she stated. "A passport can define your life, yes, because with the Cuban passport we are limited in so many ways as Cubans, but now with the Spanish passport it gives us wings, it gives us freedom, it allows us to go to more places, to know other countries, other continents."
As a Cuban, Anita must keep both documents, since Cuba does not allow renunciation of citizenship. "When you are Cuban, you are Cuban-Spanish. You have to carry both passports. For example, to go to Cuba, you need to present the Cuban one," she explained.
In the description of the reel, Anita dedicated some meaningful words to her host country: "Thank you, Spain, for welcoming me and giving me the wings that my country did not provide. Obviously, I want the passport for much more than just traveling; for a person from Cuba, it means much more than that."
This new milestone adds to another achievement that the young creator documented in November 2025: the purchase of her first house in Galicia after three years of working as a content creator, a moment she also celebrated with her fans on social media.
Now, she promised to share all the details of the nationality process on her YouTube channel, where everyone will be able to learn firsthand about each step of the procedure that led her to become a Spanish citizen.
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