A young Cuban who identifies on TikTok as @lemay620 posted a video on Wednesday that has touched the hearts of thousands: the exact moment he reunites on the street with his mother and other family members in Cuba, after three years of separation.
"After 3 years without seeing my loved ones," the protagonist wrote to describe a scene filled with tears and hugs that left no one indifferent.
The nearly four-minute clip features the hashtags #cubanosporelmundo, #cuba, and #familia, and the author summarized it with a phrase that encapsulates what millions in the diaspora feel: "it's being born again."
The video is part of a viral trend that has established itself on TikTok since 2025 and has continued to grow throughout this year: Cuban emigrants returning to the island and filming the moment of reunion with their loved ones.
The format repeats with a regularity that doesn’t diminish the emotion: the emigrant appears unexpectedly or announces their arrival, and the camera captures screams, tears, and embraces in airports, streets, or doorways.
Only in the last few days have several similar cases been reported. On Thursday, a young Cuban resident in Guyana returned to the island after three years and embraced her family in tears; she herself wrote: "Reunion with my family after 3 years. Thank you, my God, for so much."
On Tuesday, Glenda, known on TikTok as @glen_mc04, starred in another reunion that garnered over 27,700 views: her brother welcomed her barefoot at the airport after three years apart.
On Monday, a Cuban from Holguín, now living in Miami, returned after four years and three months with screams and inconsolable crying. Another case, that of "Yali," who returned after four years and two months, approached 710,000 views on the platform.
Behind each of these videos lies a story of forced separation that originates from the largest migratory exodus in the recent history of Cuba.
According to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the island's population decreased from 11,181,595 inhabitants at the end of 2021 to just over 10 million at the end of 2023, a reduction of more than one million people in just two years, primarily attributed to emigration.
The head of the ONEI acknowledged that more than a million Cubans emigrated between 2022 and 2023, and that nearly 800,000 of them were between the ages of 15 and 59.
Independent estimates raise that figure to 1.79 million departures during that period, which would place the resident population at just 8.62 million people.
That massive separation turns every return into an extraordinary event, and filmed reunions have become one of the most shared and discussed formats among the Cuban community on social media.
The song accompanying the video by @lemay620 expresses it through the voices of those who remain: "the old folks on the corner always say, no matter what you have, when you get off the station, you always return to your own."
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