A Cuban resident in the United States sparked a debate on TikTok by responding to a comment from another Cuban, who shared her personal experience with remittances to Cuba: she sends $200 in food and $100 in cash to her father and two other people on the island every month, yet her father says it’s still not enough.
In response to this, the user @elis54196 recommended looking into what her family was doing with that money and recalled how her first months on U.S. soil were: "When I arrived here, girl, when I saw 50 dollars. Oh, mom! I wore my brother-in-law's flip-flops because I couldn't buy myself any. I saved up the little money and sent it back to Cuba."
And then came the part that generated the most comments: the discovery that people who barely spoke to him in Cuba suddenly became his best friends. "When you’re here, everyone loves you. Everyone messages you. Everyone cares about you. But if I was in Cuba and you passed by me without even saying good morning," he said candidly.
The Cuban also spoke about another pattern that many recognized: that of acquaintances who appear when they need something and disappear as soon as it's resolved. "When you send them money, they solve their problem and don't even say 'hey, good morning'," she pointed out. For this reason, she said, she sometimes prefers to donate through an influencer who helps families in need in Cuba rather than sending money to people she knows.
His conclusion was straightforward: “Once you are here, they see you as an ATM. If anyone wants to take offense to my comment, that’s their problem.”
The comments were divided between those who identified immediately and those who focused on the exorbitant prices faced by any family on the island. A user who recently arrived from Cuba detailed the costs in Las Tunas: "A pack of chicken costs 6,800 pesos, a bag of rice is 800 pesos, a liter of oil is 3,000 pesos, and a pound of pork is 1,300 pesos."
"People who didn’t care about you sending friend requests and asking for money for birthdays," "Many relatives in Cuba, not all, but the majority take advantage of their family members here, exploit them, and lie to them because they only care about getting money, regardless of what it might do to their relative. Life in Cuba is expensive, but they exaggerate," or "I send my mom $200 every two weeks for my daughter, her and her husband. My mom isn’t wasteful, but it’s true that it gets spent," some users said in the comments.
The phenomenon is neither new nor isolated. Cubans in the United States and Spain have starred in similar videos in recent months, all sharing the same underlying theme: the sacrifice of the emigrant in the face of the sometimes excessive expectations of those who remain on the island. The protagonist of the video acknowledged this with empathy, but without downplaying the pain involved: “One must understand the needs of those in Cuba. I know the hunger, the misery. I know how Díaz-Canel and all the dictators have the country. But the emotional part hurts. I am helping you, and then you disappear.”
"There are times when giving money to someone you don't know, but who truly needs it, brings you blessings, mami," she concluded.
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