A Cuban resident in the United States sparked a heated debate on social media by defending her decision to return to live in Cuba, responding strongly to those who criticized her plan. Iris Deysi, known on TikTok as @iris_laprospera, published a four-minute video on May 18 where she countered each argument made by her detractors.
The trigger was a comment she read on camera: "the electricity and gasoline and internet and food and freedom, no thanks, enjoy your cage." Iris responded bluntly, questioning both the idealized vision of life in the U.S. and the image of an irredeemably uninhabitable Cuba.
"I did not come to this country to stay; I came to improve, and I have already achieved that," she stated. She has been in the U.S. for four years and arrived when her son was just six months old; by May 2026, the boy was about to turn five. "I don't know when I will see him again, so don't criticize what you don't understand because I am doing this for myself, for my son, and for my family," she emphasized.
In response to the arguments about the crisis in Cuba, Iris offered concrete answers based on the purchasing power she gains from working abroad. Regarding the blackouts: "With solar panels, the power doesn't go out, my love, and I imagine that's an investment you haven't been able to make." On the subject of the internet: "I can talk right now if I want to via FaceTime with my family because they have internet twenty-four hours a day, with an antenna that I imagine you don't have the money for." Concerning food, she recalled that in a previous video she showed what she described as a stockpile of provisions.
At the same time, he criticized the American way of life with equal force. "From the moment you wake up until you go to bed, you have to pay, work, and suffer because there is very little happiness here," he said. He also pointed out that in the U.S., "the house is never truly yours," since you have to pay for between 30 and 35 years to own it, and the car can be repossessed if payments stop. In Cuba, on the other hand, the house he built—a three-story building in Pinar del Río that he calls "the fortress"—is his outright and without conditions.
Iris also acknowledged that not every emigrant has the same luck: "there are people who haven't fared as well and have had to return with nothing." She, on the other hand, plans to return with the same comforts she has in the U.S. or more. Alongside the house, she is working on developing a farm on the island.
The case of Iris is part of a growing trend of Cubans in the U.S. who emigrated with the explicit goal of accumulating capital to invest in Cuba and return with better material conditions. The debate this generates on social media faces two perspectives: those who view the U.S. as a trap of work and debt, and those who argue that the solutions Iris describes—panels, satellite dishes, food reserves—are beyond the reach of most Cubans who do not receive foreign currency.
At the end of the video, Iris stated a phrase that summarizes the underlying tension: "Don't come here to do anything because you'll get arrested, and even so, how many people have been doing things right lately and are in prison."
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