A Cuban mother identified as @anitalacubana7 posted a video on TikTok that summarizes in one sentence what thousands of emigrants feel upon arriving in Brazil: “Brazil is a Cuba but with light, water, and food”.
The video, published on May 18 with the description "The truth that no one tells about living in Brazil," breaks with the idealized image circulating on social media about emigrating to that country and offers a raw testimony about the hardships of starting from scratch.
"Brazil is very romanticized on the internet; people show the beach, the party, the perfect life, but almost no one talks about how hard it can be to live here," warns the Cuban at the beginning of the video.
The creator acknowledges that a month after arriving, she wanted to return to Cuba: "Missing your family, starting from scratch, feeling alone, working hard, going without, enduring humiliations, and being afraid—this is also what it means to emigrate."
It also points out that Brazil is not a paradise: "There is poverty, insecurity, and many people fighting every day to survive."
However, it establishes the fundamental difference that justifies the sacrifice: "In Cuba, you can work an entire month and the salary isn't enough for even a pack of chicken, and there comes a point where you lose the desire to grow because you feel that no matter what you do, you'll never get ahead."
That structural despair is what, according to her, distinguishes the two countries: "Here you can work, start a business, buy your things, help your family, and feel that your effort actually counts for something, and that completely changes a person's mindset."
The testimony is not an isolated case. Three days prior, the same @anitalacubana7 revealed that she sold her house, her motorcycle, and her business in Cuba to emigrate to Brazil, and that the hardest part was not arriving without money but the emotional impact of having left her whole life behind.
Other Cubans in Brazil have shared similar experiences: anxiety, difficulties with Portuguese, bureaucracy, informal jobs, and adapting to a different work culture, all in stark contrast to the image of beaches and parties that predominates on TikTok.
The phenomenon is a response to an unprecedented structural crisis on the island. The Cuban Minister of Energy, Vicente de la O Levy, admitted that 2025 was the year of "the greatest fuel shortage" and that in 2026 "we will not eliminate blackouts." There were provinces experiencing power outages of up to 24 hours a day.
This context has caused Cuban emigration to Brazil to reach historic levels. The Cuban exodus is redirecting towards Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay due to the closure of legal pathways to the United States under the Trump administration, according to an analysis by Foreign Policy cited last Sunday.
Brazil went from representing only 0.4% of the destination for Cuban emigration in 2021 to 9.1% in 2024, with 22,288 Cubans applying for asylum that year, which accounted for 32.7% of the national total of refuge requests. In 2025, the number of asylum applications from Cubans in Brazil exceeded 41,900, an increase of 88% compared to the previous year.
"Brazil is not the paradise that it's portrayed as on social media, but for many Cubans, it is a place where for the first time in a long time, they feel there is an opportunity to build a better life," concludes @anitalacubana7.
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