A Cuban mother living in the United States expressed in words what thousands of families in the diaspora feel but rarely dare to say out loud. Laura, a content creator known on TikTok as @la.casa.de.laura7, published a video last Thursday lasting just over a minute, recorded during a quiet morning with her son Lucas, and the honesty of her words struck a very sensitive chord.
"How do I explain to my son that I want him to see my family? I want the family to meet him, but in my heart, deep down in my heart, I don't want to send him to Cuba," Laura confesses in front of the camera, with the ease of someone sharing a burden she has been carrying alone for a long time.
The dilemma she describes is neither new nor exclusive to her. Many Cubans who arrived in the U.S. under humanitarian parole, with an I-220A supervision order, or with a pending asylum application cannot travel to the island without jeopardizing their immigration process. Leaving the country can be interpreted as a sign that they do not need international protection, or it may simply prevent their return. Faced with this impossibility, the solution many families find is to send the child with the father or another relative who can travel, so that the grandparents can meet the child.
Laura summarizes it with a painful question: “How do you send your child to a country that has turned into a hell? How do you send your child to a country full of diseases, misery, and garbage?”
But then the other side of the dilemma appears, equally powerful: "How are you going to leave your family, your grandparents who are old, to their grandparents, without them knowing?"
That tension between fear and love is precisely what transforms the video into something more than just a personal outlet. Laura understands this, which is why she concludes that, despite everything, sending the child is "the greatest act of love" that an emigrant mother can offer her family on the island.
The phenomenon described is widely recognized within the Cuban community in the U.S. and has repeatedly generated similar stories. A Cuban mother in Miami sent her baby to Cuba with the father so the grandparents could meet the child because she couldn't travel. Another sent her 15-month-old daughter to the island and described her experience. Yet another sent her son alone with I-220A because she couldn't leave the U.S. In all cases, the mix of love, guilt, fear, and nostalgia is the common thread.
There are also those who have experienced a true odyssey after sending their youngest child to Cuba, and others who have had to face criticism from those who do not understand their decision. Each story is unique, but they all share the same root: a family divided between two worlds due to decades of dictatorship and an unending exodus.
Laura concludes her video with an open question to her community that summarizes everything: "Let me know in the comments if your little ones have already been to Cuba or if you also feel that need to send them, but deep down in your heart, you don't want to." She adds, with a phrase that says it all: "Migrating is definitely tough, but being Cuban is a whole different story."
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