The Cuban content creator @laura_sin_filtros published a video on TikTok this past Monday, in which she gives a direct warning to Cuban emigrants: romanticizing the idea of returning to the island could cost them money, resources, and "perhaps the only opportunity" to move forward.
The video, published in response to another user identified as @Jenn López, highlights a trend that has flooded social media in recent months: emotional content featuring family reunions in Cuba, which creates a nostalgic narrative capable of distorting the perception of reality on the island.
"I believe that the idea of returning to our country is being overly romanticized on social media," Laura states in the video, addressing particularly those who are experiencing depression or moments of emotional vulnerability.
Its central message is clear: before making that decision, the emigrant must assess whether the factors that pushed them to leave—economic, political, ideological, or socio-cultural—are still present in Cuba.
"I need you to analyze and reflect on the triggering factors that made you emigrate from your country to another, the ones that led you to make the hardest decision of your life, that pushed you to pack all your belongings into a backpack and cross skies, seas, and land," says the creator.
The answer, according to her, lies in that very reflection: "If you left your country because there was no electricity, because there was no water, because there was no medicine, and your country is still like that, don't romanticize the idea of returning, because when you get back there, nothing is going to be different."
The context supporting this warning is the most severe crisis that Cuba has experienced in decades: power outages of more than 15 hours a day, collapse of the rationing system, and critical shortages of food and medicine, with no signs of improvement under the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel.
This scenario has triggered the largest exodus in the recent history of the island: between 2021 and 2024, approximately 1.79 million Cubans left the country, reducing its population from 11.3 million to between 8.6 and 8.8 million.
Prolonged family separations —lasting on average between two and six years— create deep emotional pain in the diaspora, a fertile ground for the idealization of return.
In this context, TikTok has become filled with videos of emotional reunions between Cuban emigrants and their families on the island, with viral cases such as a woman who was welcomed by her entire neighborhood after two years of absence, or a son who was received at the airport after four years apart from his family.
Laura does not deny that pain, but she does warn about the consequences of acting from it: "The only thing that will be different is that you will have spent your money, your resources, and perhaps the only opportunity you have to move forward."
It also does not place blame on the emigrant: "Here, no one is going to give you anything. No one who is outside owes anything to the country, but they owe it the opportunity, the opportunity they didn't have."
The video ends with a phrase that summarizes its entire argument: "That is what you owe to the country where you are: the opportunity to get ahead, the opportunity that was denied to you in your own country, even if you were a doctor, even if you were a teacher, even if you had a business."
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