A Cuban resident in the United States since 2016 shared on TikTok the ordeal she faced while trying to organize her 13-year-old son's vacation in Cuba, in a nearly 10-minute video that shows her with swollen eyes from crying and has elicited a wide reaction among the Cuban community abroad.
Dreisys Lianet Reyes published the story on Saturday, July 25, in which she describes how what was supposed to be a simple trip turned into a conflict of parental authority, disrespect, and decisions made without her consent.
Dreisys explains that the child's father—her ex-partner, from whom she separated when the child was just eight months old—never fulfilled his role: "he never sent child support, he never took him away... basically, what he wanted was psychological warfare with me," she states in the video. Despite this history, she organized and paid for the entire trip: she hired an accompanying flight attendant for over 300 dollars and also bought an additional ticket for her current husband to take the minor to Cuba with greater security.
The conflict erupted when Dreisys called the father to coordinate logistics and asked him to also take the child to Las Tunas when picking him up at the airport, as the minor wanted to visit his cousin. The father refused, claiming that "gas prices are very high" and that she "has been away for years and doesn't know how things are in Cuba."
Dreisys offered to either pay for the gas or give her the option to pick up the child the next day, but the response was hostile. “My son wants to go to Cuba; I’m paying for everything. I’m asking you for one kilo; I’m not asking you to pay for anything; I’m covering everything,” she responded, as she recounts in the video.
What hurt her the most, however, was not the father's refusal but the actions of her current husband: without consulting her and disregarding what they had both agreed upon before the trip, he gave the father permission to take the child to his house, something that Dreisys had expressly denied. "I made the legal document for my son stating where he was going to be in a house in Cuba, but he couldn't just come and take him... because of the previous lack of respect," she explains.
In the video, Dreisys emphasizes that "since 2016 to the present" she has been raising her son alone and that "in God's life" she has heard something negative about his father. Her question to the audience is straightforward: "I want you to tell me if I'm the crazy one."
The case falls within a recurring issue among the Cuban diaspora: families separated by migration where one parent lives in the U.S. and the other remains on the island, leading to custody conflicts exacerbated by the lack of bilateral agreements between both countries regarding the parental abduction of minors. Numerous Cuban mothers abroad have shared similar testimonies about the emotional and legal dilemmas involved in sending their children to Cuba for vacations.
The Cuban legal framework requires the notarized authorization of both parents for a minor to leave the country, regulated by the , a requirement that has, in practice, been used as a pressure mechanism in disputes between separated parents.
Dreisys closed the video with an announcement that summarizes her mood: "This is in dispute because I might catch a plane to Cuba in two days, and let the sun rise wherever it needs to rise because I am outstanding here, as you can see."
Filed under: