A young Cuban identified as Javier Guerrero posted a reel on Facebook that has strongly resonated with his fellow countrymen: in it, he rejects the idea that survival should be the only possible outlook on life for Cubans of his generation.
"I am Cuban and I refuse to let survival define my entire identity. Because lately when you talk to someone, it's all about: 'the electricity, the food, making ends meet, the dollar.' Man, of course all of that matters, but if you spend 24 hours mentally stuck on the problem, you end up forgetting how to live," says Guerrero in the video.
The reflection does not stop at diagnosis: “I honestly refuse to believe that we were born just to endure. I want to build things, learn, improve, dream big as well... why not? Life is tough enough without having to give up your dreams at such a young age.”
The question that Guerrero leaves hanging—“why not dream big?”—is, at its core, a direct challenge to a reality that has been trying to convince Cubans for decades that merely surviving is enough.
The video has garnered over 21,700 views, 1,672 likes, and 58 comments, figures that reflect the resonance it found among those who recognize their own daily exhaustion in those words.
The background is one of the most severe crises that Cuba has experienced in decades. During 2026, power outages have lasted between 20 and 87 hours in various regions of the country.
On July 14th, for the third time in just eight days, a massive failure in the electrical system cut off power for millions of Cubans, confirming that the island is experiencing one of its worst energy crises in 67 years.
This is compounded by a chronic shortage of food, medicine, and fuel, along with an exchange rate that reduces a minimum pension to less than 10 dollars a month.
It is in this context that Guerrero's phrase gains significance: the list "the current, the food, resolving, the dollar" is not rhetorical, but rather the actual inventory of conversations that dominate life on the island.
The video is part of a wave of content that young Cubans have gone viral on social media this year, questioning the normalization of suffering as a trait of national identity.
In June, for example, creator @keki_mami suggested on TikTok that choosing not to show pain does not mean denying it, but rather choosing "not to make suffering part of your identity."
Young people who have grown up amid the crisis feel that they are asked to abandon their aspirations from a young age, and social media has become the space where they collectively process this burden and seek to redefine Cuban identity beyond scarcity.
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