A Cuban identified on TikTok as Ismerai Romero posted a video showcasing her husband's work as a mobile hairdresser, an image that starkly encapsulates the survival economy that supports thousands of families on the island.
In the clip, Ismerai goes through the contents of a backpack that her husband carries from home to his workplace: peeling machines, scissors, combs, razors, a small mirror, hair spray, and lubricant for the machines. All the equipment of a beauty salon, compressed into a bag and mounted on a portable chair that Ismerai herself acknowledges "needs to be better."
"Come, I'll show you how we make a living here in Cuba," he says at the start of the video, published on June 22.
At the end of the clip, Ismerai poses a question to those who no longer live on the island: "What were you doing when you lived here in Cuba?" transforming the personal testimony into a collective reflection of the Cuban diaspora.
The video is not an isolated case. According to a survey by Cubadata published in April 2026, 86.6% of Cubans resort to the informal economy to avoid hunger. The ability to sustain oneself "always" through autonomous activities fell from 24.1% in 2024 to 16% in 2026, while the "frequent" use of those activities rose from 29.8% to 40.5%.
The figures explain why a backpack with peeling machines becomes a work tool: the official average salary in Cuba is around 6,930 pesos per month, equivalent to just between 13 and 16 dollars at the unofficial exchange rate, while meeting basic needs requires about 96,000 pesos per month, with over 70,000 pesos allocated solely for food.
According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), in 2024 there were over 831,000 informal workers in Cuba, which represents 20.1% of the total workforce, without access to social security or labor protection.
The mobile hairdressing service is among the activities authorized for self-employment since the 2010 reforms, although many practice it without a license or registration. In June 2026, the regime also began to authorize the street vending of certain products, implicitly recognizing that the street economy is a reality that can no longer be ignored.
The phenomenon of Cubans documenting their daily work on social media resonates deeply within the diaspora. Videos of bicycle messengers, street vendors with their calls, or mothers improvising businesses with whatever they can find have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views in recent months, creating a distinct genre of social testimony about contemporary Cuba.
The video featuring Ismerai, which garnered over 20,200 views, is yet another in that series, but its simplicity makes it particularly eloquent: a backpack, a chair, and some peeling machines represent, for many Cuban families, the equivalent of a business, a pension, and a safety net, all at once.
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