The Cuban journalist Gloria Ordaz, host of the news program on Telemundo 51 in Miami, published this Monday on her official Facebook account a black and white photograph from her childhood in Cuba, accompanied by a reflection that quickly resonated with thousands of Cubans in the diaspora.
"I look at that girl I used to be, in uniform and scarf, and I think about how many generations of Cuban children have grown up under the same slogans, the same indoctrination, and the same promises of a better future," Ordaz wrote alongside the photograph on his Facebook profile.
The journalist was straightforward in highlighting the human cost of more than six decades of dictatorship: "The failure of the Revolution can also be measured by that: in the postponed dreams, in the separated families, and in so many children who today grow up unable to envision a prosperous future in the land where they were born."
He closed his publication with a personal wish that encapsulated the sentiment of an entire generation: "I had the opportunity to build another path. My wish is that someday no Cuban child will have to leave Cuba to be able to dream in freedom."
It is not the first time that Ordaz has spoken publicly about her childhood under the regime. In March 2021, she had already shared a similar reflection, in which she recalled being "a girl that the regime indoctrinated every day," forced to shout the slogan "Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che" during morning assemblies at school, believing she was "a student of the homeland."
On that occasion, he also revealed the moment when everything changed: "One day I grew up and realized that everything I had been told about Che, the Revolution, the history of Cuba, and even more terrifying, that the Americans wanted to invade us, was A BIG LIE."
Ordaz arrived in South Florida in 1998 at just 20 years old and has built a career of over two decades in Hispanic television in Miami from the ground up.
Her personal story resonates strongly in a context where the Cuban regime continues to mobilize children in political events and the pioneer indoctrination remains prevalent in the classrooms of the Island. In June of this year, Cubans on social media mocked the pioneer oath, pointing out that those who recited it in schools are now scattered around the world.
The slogan "Pioneers for Communism, we will be like Che!" was adopted in 1968 and continues to be a central theme in Cuban school events to this day, while the exodus of entire families shows no signs of stopping.
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