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Cuba, the Country We Still Carry with Us

By Dario Alejandro Escobar (La Joven Cuba)

HAVANA TIMES – A few days ago, a friend asked me why I had used the word exile in an article I published in a Latin American magazine. It made me think. The truth is that I did not leave Cuba after being formally expelled, like so many colleagues and friends. I am not an exile in the classical legal sense. I can return to the Island, enter through the airport, embrace my family, and walk the same streets where I grew up. At least as far as I know. And yet, I often identify with the condition of being exiled.

Not because there is an official document forbidding me from living in my country, but because for years I felt that the conditions for building a dignified, stable life with a future were disappearing. The great Cuban tragedy of recent years is not only economic; it is emotional, existential, and, of course, profoundly political. It has to do with an entire generation that began to feel that the country where we were born no longer allowed us to imagine a future, so we left to look for one elsewhere.

There comes a point in the daily life of a Cuban when one grows tired of thinking about prices that change from one day to the next, of walking halfway across the city to find basic products, or of organizing the day around endless power outages. There is a constant sense of wear and tear, of life slipping away while we struggle to meet the bare minimum, unable to fulfill our dreams—whatever they may be, however modest. The perception that every personal project faces too many limits at once, and the feeling that no matter how hard one works or how much extra effort one makes, reality barely changes.

Many people believe that emigrating is simply about wanting to consume more or earn more money. In part, that is true. Consumption matters, and in Cuba it matters even more because the country is suffering the worst economic crisis in its recent history. The energy collapse, inflation, and the deterioration of public services affect everyday life. But explaining Cuban emigration as merely a search for material well-being is not enough to understand the magnitude of the phenomenon.

Many of us also left in search of peace of mind, a space to breathe, and the need to feel that life could move toward something meaningful. A country where we could raise children, aspire to a dignified old age, and avoid becoming a burden on our families. Or at least a place where it seemed possible to fight for those goals.

Another dimension is fear—excessive caution........

© Havana Times