The Cuban actress Odelmys Torres posted a video on TikTok and Instagram in which she appears visibly emotional as she shares the five hardest truths she has faced since emigrating to Spain, and her words struck a deep chord with thousands of Cubans in the diaspora.
In the video posted on her TikTok account, the actress does not aim to project an image of strength or successful adaptation. On the contrary, she allows herself to be vulnerable, speaks from a place of pain, and acknowledges that the migratory process has not been what she expected.
"Emigrating was the complete opposite of what I imagined when I left Cuba. But it's my journey, and I want to embrace it from start to finish (spoiler: it has no end)," she writes in the video description.
Odelmys Torres graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Cuba in 2018 and is mainly known for her role as "Cecilia" in the youth series Calendario. She also participated in the police series Tras la huella and the telenovela Tan lejos y tan cerca, in addition to working in theater with the Mefisto Teatro group under the direction of Carlos Díaz.
Resides in Madrid with your partner. In a October 2023 interview, she confessed: "I never considered leaving Cuba, I didn't want to, I resisted the idea of abandoning the place where I was born." It was one day that she woke up and realized she wanted her children to be born elsewhere that led her to make the definitive decision.
In the video, the actress shares five reflections filled with deep emotion. She acknowledges that she doesn't have to "manage everything or overcome it all," and that she needs to listen to the signals from her body. She confesses that she wants to have children but doesn't feel ready yet. And she reveals something that few people dare to say out loud: "I really want to hug my father, but I don't dare to tell him because I don't want him to break."
She also speaks of her therapy as the only safe space she has at the moment, and clarifies that it does not make her any less strong: "On the contrary, thanks to that, I am creating that space within myself."
The comments in response to their words reflect an immediate connection. One user wrote: "The pain goes away, hides, returns, but everything passes, stay strong." Another confessed: "We all thought it was something else; it literally took me to rock bottom... I still don't feel completely happy."
A Cuban mother shared that she emigrates "with her soul in pieces," but draws strength from her son and grandson.
This type of testimony is part of a sustained trend among Cubans in Spain who use TikTok to document the human cost of migration, a process that experts describe as a multiple and invisible mourning that includes the loss of family ties, identity, and sense of belonging.
Between 2021 and 2024, approximately 1.79 million Cubans left the island, with Spain being one of the main destinations. Many of them share on social media the weight of being an emigrant Cuban, with stories that, like Odelmys', talk about getting back up time and again after each fall.
What makes Odelmys Torres's video special is precisely its honesty: it doesn't promise that everything will be alright, nor does it pretend to have overcome the pain. It simply speaks the truth, and for thousands of Cubans undergoing the same experience, that is more than enough.
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