The Cuban content creator Sussel Alonso shared the pain of saying farewell to her family when leaving Cuba, and her testimony has garnered thousands of views and messages of support within just a few hours.
"How it hurts to leave Cuba, damn it. No one imagines the weight of an airport when you leave behind your entire life," Sussel expressed in an emotional video on Instagram.
She accompanied the presentation of the reel with a brief message: "No one leaves their homeland because they stop loving it. Sometimes they leave because they feel they have no other choice; this is the CRY of a Cuban woman."
From the very first moment, the creator makes it clear that her departure was not a free choice. "I am not crying because I left Cuba. I am crying because I had to leave."
Sussel precisely distinguishes between the desire to explore the world and the feeling of having been expelled from her own country, amid shortages and a lack of freedoms.
"Wanting to explore the world is one thing, but feeling that your own country pushed you to pack your bags is something entirely different," she stated.
The pain of broken bonds occupies a significant part of his story: "It hurts me to leave my land, my family. It hurts to think about the hugs I don't know when I will be able to give again. It hurts to think about all the dates that from today on will be via video call."
The content creator assures that her departure does not mean she stops loving Cuba: "I didn't leave because I prefer another land. I didn't leave because I stopped loving Cuba. I left because I refuse to wither along with it."
The Cuban mother confessed that her child's well-being was very important when making this difficult decision. "I feel that my son deserves to grow up in a place where dreaming is not a luxury, where work is attainable, and where living is not just surviving," she said.
The creator does not shy away from the political dimension of her testimony and directly points to the responsibility of the Cuban government in the migration crisis that the country is experiencing.
"Yes, I feel anger. Anger that so many Cubans like me have to say goodbye to the people we love the most in order to aspire to a different life. Anger at feeling that the decisions of those who have governed my country have mattered more than the well-being of its people (...) That is one of the reasons why I am not in Cuba today," he commented.
The testimony comes at a time of unprecedented historical exodus. Data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) indicates that in 2025, 313,414 people permanently left Cuba and only 72,056 returned, resulting in a negative migration balance of 245,264 people, which is equivalent to 2.5% of the population.
Since 2021, over a million Cubans are believed to have left the island driven by a lack of freedoms, political repression, prolonged blackouts, chronic shortages, and a significant economic crisis. Cuba has accumulated nine consecutive years of population loss.
Filed under: