A young Cuban content creator, Lauren Daniela (@laurenlotti_), shared an Instagram reel that captures in a single phrase what millions of Cubans experience daily: "Here, even if you work yourself to the bone, it’s not enough to eat. Even a doctor can’t make ends meet with their salary. We're talking about eating, not living."
The video directly responds to those who criticized her for "not working" and "being pitiful on social media." Lauren does not speak in abstract terms: she documents the work history of her own family as irrefutable evidence that the issue is not a lack of effort, but a system that makes it impossible to live off of work.
Her grandmother spent 15 years working night shifts for 300 pesos and ended up suffering from nerves. "You can't live here; your life just slips away," she says in the video. Her grandfather, a welder by trade, has accumulated four decades of work and continues to work after retirement in order to survive: "I live by inventing ways to get by. I hope that one day change comes, and we can show another reality." Her uncles have even had to hold down two jobs simultaneously to support the household.
Lauren also describes her own work as a content creator alongside her studies, far from being a comfortable activity: she records and edits during power outages, searches for an internet connection, walks for hours under the sun, and has even fainted while delivering aid to those in need.
In response to those who criticize him for providing aid to the elderly and children, he firmly replies: "To those who say we should teach how to fish instead of giving out fish, bringing aid to some grandpas and kids is not giving handouts; it's a human relief."
The video concludes with a phrase that encapsulates the message of his entire journey: "Behind every smile you see in our videos, there is a people exhausted from performing miracles every day, just to survive. Asking us to be silent and not show what is happening is asking us to be complicit in the suffering of our people."
This reel is not the first one with which Lauren shakes up social media. A video about her grandfather's homemade antenna garnered millions of views and boosted her Instagram account.
In July, he sold the house where he lived with his grandparents in order to buy them a more spacious and accessible home in Matanzas. Weeks earlier, he had documented 80 consecutive hours without electricity or water in his home.
Her audience, mainly composed of Cubans in the diaspora in Spain, the United States, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, has supported her financially to provide aid to vulnerable families on the island.
Filed under: