"The Cuba of my time"

A young Cuban exile looks back to the country he left five years ago

Leonardo Bacarreza

May 21, 2026

Disclosure: At the interviewee’s request, certain identifying details have been omitted or altered to protect his privacy and safety. The source agreed to speak on the record about his experience as a Cuban exile under the condition that personally identifiable information remain limited. The interviewee is identified by name only.

When Javier speaks of his country, he often uses the phrase “the Cuba of my time.” He is not referring to pre-revolutionary times or to the turmoil of the Cold War. He speaks of a country he left five years ago. One that he can barely recognize nowadays.

Javier, 20, just started college in a prestigious American university. He has no doubt: he wants to become a doctor, just like his father. In Cuba, his family lived in a town around four hours away from Havana. In 2021, right after COVID-19 hit the island, Javier’s parents had to make a tough decision. They wanted a better future for their son, and they knew it could not be achieved there. So they had to split. Javier’s mother left Cuba for the U.S. first, and then he came to live with her. His father, for several bureaucratic reasons, had to stay.

But how does one leave Cuba without telling the government? Javier and his mother had to resort to a legal loophole. “My mom’s family is criolla” (of Spanish descent), Javier clarifies. According to Spanish law, if Cuban citizens can prove ancestry in Spain, they can obtain a Spanish passport and travel anywhere, including the United States. Once in the U.S., they are able to adjust their status. The Cuban Adjustment Act, established in 1966, allows any Cuban citizen to remain in the country and apply for permanent residence (green card) after one year and one day. 

Javier’s story illustrates the complexities of coming to the U.S. legally. American immigration law has clear categories for admission, but when they interact with international law, many gray areas emerge. Most immigrants navigate them with different degrees of legal support, but also with intuition and determination, as Javier’s family did.

The Spanish passport method may take months or even years. “You don’t have a specific date. You file your claim today, and it can arrive at any time. But it will take a long time,” Javier explains. Nowadays, his brother is trying to do the same, but that case is more difficult because Javier’s brother is married and has children. He needs to obtain a Spanish passport and then petition the rest of his family, first to Spain, then to the U.S. It is a years-long process.

There is another, riskier way for Cubans to reach the U.S. border. They are allowed to visit Nicaragua, an ally of Cuba. If they can afford it, they fly to Nicaragua as tourists, but instead of returning, they begin traveling toward Mexico alone or as part of a caravan, and then try to cross the U.S. border. Some fail, and some succeed. Javier knows this firsthand, too. That is how his girlfriend arrived in the U.S. 

Considering Javier’s academic success, it is clear that his family’s decision was the right one. When it comes to education, he speaks positively of “the Cuba of my time.” After arriving, he studied at a magnet school in Miami, and although the language barrier was tough at first, his math and science skills were ahead of his grade level.

“In math and science class (in high school), for example, Algebra A and B were for 9th grade,” Javier recalls. “Instead of learning, I was already doing things. While the teacher explained the exercises, I thought, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I learned this in Cuba.’” 

Javier knows that things are different now in Cuban education. “A teacher’s salary in Cuba nowadays is around 7 to 10 American dollars,” he explains. “That’s why almost no one wants to be a teacher. And since there are no new teachers in the educational system, Cuba has declined tremendously. Nowadays, they are probably behind the American system of my time, and that was five years ago.”

As a future doctor, Javier is especially concerned with the Cuban health system. A few years ago, he was still able to go back to the country for short visits. What he saw was that hospitals in Cuba, once respected all over Latin America, lacked basic equipment and were overwhelmed. “That’s another thing Cubans are seeing. You can’t get sick because there’s absolutely nothing to treat you with.”

This situation has touched Javier in different ways. Around a decade ago, his father, an Afro-Cuban doctor, was treated in the public health system for a diabetes-related retinal disease. He almost went blind but recovered. A sharp contrast with the present. Just five days before the interview for this report, Javier suffered the loss of a teacher he had in primary school. She had a C-section after giving birth to twins. After the surgery, she complained that she didn’t feel well. She went to a health center where she was told everything was fine, but she died because she had an untreated infection. 

Javier’s father is officially retired, but he still treats people for free. In his actions, Javier sees a spirit of solidarity and hospitality that is part of Cuban culture. When he talks about these values, Javier does not contrast the present and the past. 

He believes goodwill is still alive. He was raised listening to stories of his paternal grandmother cooking in a big pot and offering food to anyone passing through town, locals or foreigners. He keeps that story in mind. “Nowadays, when tourists go (to Cuba), this feeling, this hospitality, helps everyone. It can be because they want to survive, because tourist money is worth a lot, but it’s not just about survival. It’s inherent. It comes from the Cuban people. This is one of the things I miss about my town.”