A young Cuban named Raidel Ramírez shared an emotional video of his farewell to Cuba on TikTok on Sunday, a clip that gathered over 173,000 views in just a few days and touched the hearts of thousands of users.
In the images, the young man is seen enveloped in hugs and tears alongside friends from the neighborhood and family, in what he himself described as one of the hardest moments of his life.
In the background of the video, a turquoise classic car appears as one of the people present cries during the farewell hug.
Raidel posted the clip in response to another user on the platform and tagged it with the words #cuba, #farewell, #latinos, and #venezuela, suggesting that the South American country was part of his migration route or destination.
The description that accompanied the video was brief but direct: "Farewell to Cuba, I left Cuba in 2023."
That year marked the peak of the largest migratory exodus in Cuban history. In the fiscal years 2022 and 2023, around 425,000 Cubans arrived in the United States, a number that surpassed all previous migratory movements from the island, including the Mariel Boatlift in 1980 and the balsero crisis in 1994.
From 2021 to 2023, over one million people left the country, which reduced the population from 11.18 million to 10.05 million in three years, equivalent to more than 10% of its total population, according to official data.
Around 800,000 of those emigrants were aged between 15 and 59, which severely impacted the country's workforce.
Recorded farewells in neighborhoods, courtyards, and airports have become a recurring phenomenon on TikTok, where the Cuban diaspora finds a space for collective mourning.
Similar videos to Raidel evoke empathy and catharsis among those who recognize their own story of separation, whether they are the ones who left or those who remained waiting.
The Cuban migratory grief is characterized by guilt, anxiety, and deep sadness, exacerbated by the uncertainty of when —or if— there will be a reunion.
The economic crisis, the political repression of the regime, and the lack of opportunities are the main driving forces behind an exodus that, according to demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, may have reached 1.79 million people between 2021 and 2024.
The video by Raidel, with its 179 comments and hundreds of reactions, is just one of the thousands of testimonials that document that human cost: empty homes, lonely grandparents, and broken families scattered across the island and the world.
Filed under: