A brief reunion of just 34 seconds, filmed outside an airport, turned into one of those videos that makes you stop scrolling and tightens your chest: a Cuban woman embraces her grandmother with the strength of someone who understands the value of that moment.
The clip was posted on TikTok by the user @rosalia_dieppa_realtor, identified as Rosalia Dieppa, a Cuban real estate agent active on social media. The description she chose to accompany the video says it all: "For many more hugs that heal the soul".
In the audio, a voice can be heard shouting, "Raise the hand of Cuba! One!"—a signal that the reunion takes place within the Cuban community abroad, where each embrace carries years of distance and waiting.
This type of imagery has become a recurring phenomenon on TikTok, driven by the massive exodus that has separated millions of Cuban families. Between 2020 and 2024, more than 1.4 million Cubans left the island, and an academic estimate from the University of Navarra places the total figure between 2021 and 2024 at around 1.79 million people.
The demographic consequences are devastating: the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) reported that Cuba ended 2024 with 9,748,007 inhabitants, which is 307,961 fewer than in 2023, with a decline rate of -30.6 per thousand inhabitants.
That emptiness has a very concrete human face: grandmothers who age alone on the island while their granddaughters build lives in another country, not knowing when —or if— they will see each other again.
The I-220A immigration status, which prevents many Cubans in the United States from traveling outside the country, further exacerbates that separation. In February of this year, a mother with that status sent her son alone to Cuba to reunite with his grandmother, as she was unable to cross any borders.
Reunions at airports—filled with tears, shouts, and hugs that seem never to end—have become the most genuine testament to the human drama faced by the Cuban diaspora. In April, young Carlos Daniel Ramos shared his return to Cuba after emigrating to Florida, and the video touched the hearts of thousands. In March, the embrace of two Cuban friends outside an airport in Mexico experienced a similar fate.
The pattern repeats itself because the pain that causes it also recurs: a dictatorship that for 67 years has driven its people to leave, abandoning those who no longer have the strength to go.
In May, the reunion of Zulien Martínez with her daughter Carla after four years of separation created a similar response on social media. Each video is different. The distance behind each hug remains the same.
Filed under: