Cuban University Alarmed After Studying the “Migrant Dream”
HAVANA TIMES – The “migrant dream” of Cubans is under the scrutiny of researchers from the University of Oriente in Santiago de Cuba. The official press dedicated a recent article to outline the “concern” of academics about a series of factors that are demographically troubling the province: the youth exodus, an aging population, high infant mortality, and low fertility.
After gathering data on migration from students at five schools at different education levels, the university’s Department of Psychology identified multiple “atypical situations,” as they describe the act of leaving the country. The study was launched as part of a Migration Research Project, and although it does not provide figures, it draws revealing conclusions.
A battalion of “sociologists, educators, journalists, social communicators, economists, psychiatrists” under the leadership of Dr. Raida Dusu, head of the project, noted that Cuban families have suffered serious “alterations.” Teenagers and young adults —who emigrate more frequently— have “replaced” their family role of “studying” or “building identity” to become the family’s “providers,” a role that would traditionally belong to their parents.
The exodus “modifies life projects,” impacts “friendship and romantic relationships,” and “transforms the ways development tasks are approached at certain stages of life,” said Dusu. The consequence for young people who stay behind is total “demotivation towards studies.” When asked about their results, the academic says, the teenagers’ response is that they are “waiting to emigrate.”
Dusu gives an even more telling example. Among the elementary school children studied, who participated in the “five wishes dynamic,” most responded with their first wish being: “to leave the country.”
Many children dream “of a reality they don’t have” and use future migration “as a defense mechanism known as fantasy.” When referring to their life projects, adolescents in Santiago de Cuba “visualize themselves in another place” and talk about plans only possible outside the country.
The academic notes that she has observed “identity confusion” and little certainty when answering “where do you see yourself” in the future. “When one does not fulfill a developmental task, it complicates the life cycle, life projects are not determined because the desire to emigrate leaves no room for this,” she adds.
In fact, Dusu asserts, when emigration plans fail or are delayed, children and adolescents are the first to experience frustration. There is “observable depression” in the cases the University of Oriente has studied, with “conflicts” and “psychopathological repercussions.” Minors often become victims of “anxiety and arguments” with those who stay behind or, via telephone, with their emigrated relatives.
Cuba has become a country of “transnational and dispersed families,” concludes Dusu, without daring to mention the reasons why Santiago residents emigrate (not only abroad, but also to the western part of the island) or to attribute any responsibility to the government. Many “leave their careers and work to wait for that realization.” Others “stop working thanks to the remittances they receive.”
Dusu says the illusion is that emigrants live in “sugar-coated, magnified” scenarios and not in reality. This motivates the desire to “seize the opportunity of the present,” seeking “prosperity outside their place of origin.”
The only figures cited by Sierra Maestra about this situation come from the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), which it accuses of being “outdated.” Santiago, the second most populous province in Cuba, had 1,040,897 inhabitants at the end of 2022. In just one year —by December 2023 —that number dropped to 1,034,786. That year, 5,230 Santiago residents died, and 4,703 new births were reported. The rest left. The newspaper concludes that “the pace of these figures,” and the negative growth rate, will produce “incalculable consequences.”
Cuba in general, not only Santiago de Cuba, has a huge people problem. The study outlines the demographically troubling issues causing the population major concerns namely: the aging population, low fertility, high infant mortality and the most troubling of all, youth exodus.
The first two – aging people and low fertility- which causes an obvious depletion in a country’s population are no different than what most Western countries experience, for example Japan and Italy. These two population problems can be easily rectified with planned immigration policies if a country so chooses. Unfortunately for Cuba, it has no immigration policy. Its population growth or decline is determined within the island’s borders.
The most glaring Cuban emigration issue – youth exodus- as the article clearly points out has profound effects on all aspects of Cuban life. In a normal society the ambitions for the majority of youth are to complete their education in whatever mode the country has to offer, obtain a job to earn a living, and perhaps marry and have children. With these outcomes a society advances.
Unfortunately today in Cuban society, as the article outlines, this is no longer the normal youth trajectory which leads to a country’s economic, social, and cultural success. When a country’s youth are constantly thinking and actually realizing their exodus dreams, the end result for the Cuban nation is very bleak. No surprise here, when the obvious conclusion of mass youth exodus mobility is as: “The newspaper concludes that “the pace of these figures,” and the negative growth rate, will produce “incalculable consequences.””
One may easily insinuate that perhaps the Cuban government really doesn’t care. When it clearly opens the door to emigration without a visa needed to enter Nicaragua, and when the totalitarian government knows full well foreign remittances will be arriving into the Cuban government coffers on a regular basis, why rock the boat.
All these young Cubans exiting the island in the hundreds of thousands will, in good conscience, send money (most likely American dollars or Euros) to their financial deprived family and friends. As the article articulates: “Teenagers and young adults —who emigrate more frequently— have “replaced” their family role of “studying” or “building identity” to become the family’s “providers,” a role that would traditionally belong to their parents.”
As the new young family providers living and earning income abroad, the Cuban government surely exploits this newly minted revenue resource to its maximum. All incoming remittances first flow into the pockets of the totalitarian government. How much is anyone’s guess.
The monetary take from these remittances to the totalitarian government keeps increasing annually as more and more young Cubans depart. So from the Cuban government’ s perspective as the old saying says: Never cut off the hand that feeds you. Simply another very sad situation for the majority of patriotic Cuban people.
“Ask not the reason why? Yours is but to do – or die!”