A Cuban resident in Spain known on TikTok as Mey01 (@meibys0110) posted a video on Saturday that has touched thousands of people: her return to Cuba after 4 years and 7 months of absence and the reunion with her mother and sister.
The clip, shared on their TikTok account with the description "Reunion with my mother and sister," lasts one minute and 48 seconds and captures the intensity of a moment that many Cuban families separated by the exodus can relate to.
The video's transcription reveals emotionally charged fragments: "baby, how do you feel?" someone asks, and the answer comes through tears: "alone, daughter, alone, no, but yes, she has brought it." In the background, another voice exclaims, "oh my God, let’s go, we need to bring down the things, she is exhausted," as the family tries to process the reunion.
The video is part of a trend that has solidified on TikTok since 2025, where Cuban émigrés document their returns to the island after years of forced separation. Some of these clips have reached notable figures: the return of Pedro Solano after 20 years away surpassed 710,000 views, and a video from early July in which a Cuban's mother collapsed in shock accumulated 223,000 views.
The separation of Mey01 —almost five years— is representative of a generation of Cubans who emigrated between late 2021 and early 2022, when the exodus dramatically accelerated. Between 2021 and 2026, more than 1.79 million Cubans have left the island, marking the largest exodus in the history of the country.
Spain has become the main European destination for this emigration, with approximately 287,490 Cubans registered by mid-2026. The real story of each Cuban who emigrates to Spain almost always includes the same chapter: years of video calls as the only bridge with loved ones left behind.
That family fracture has a statistical dimension that is hard to ignore: 38% of Cuban households have at least one member living outside the country. The economic crisis, chronic blackouts, shortages of food and medicine, and political repression are the factors that have emptied the island of a significant portion of its population, which has decreased from 11.3 million to between 8.6 and 8.8 million inhabitants.
In this context, each return becomes a profoundly emotional event, and TikTok has transformed into the platform where these moments are shared with a diaspora that experiences them as their own. Other recent reunions that also moved the online Cuban community include Daniela's on July 2, and Daimy (@daimylydom), who returned to Cuba in May after three years abroad to embrace her mother.
Mey01's video garnered 358 "likes" and 16 comments in the first few days, with responses from followers who recognize in her story the shared pain of thousands of Cuban families torn apart by exile.
Filed under: