Among the primary school children investigated, to whom “the dynamic of the five wishes” was applied, the majority responded first: “leave the country.”
14ymedio, Havana, 30 April 2024 — The “migrant dream” of Cubans is under the magnifying glass of researchers at the Universidad de Oriente, in Santiago de Cuba. The official press dedicated an article this Tuesday to reviewing the “concern” of academics over a series of factors that keep the province in demographic check: the youth stampede, the aging population, high infant mortality and low fertility.
After collecting data on migration among students from five schools of different studies, the Department of Psychology of the Santiago university identified multiple “atypical situations,” as they describe the fact of leaving the country. The study was launched as part of a Migration Research Project, and although it does not offer figures, it does draw revealing conclusions.
The consequence for the young people who stay is total “demotivation for studies”
The battalion of “sociologists, educators, journalists, social and economic communicators, psychiatrists” under the command of Dr. Raida Dusu, head of the project, noted that Cuban families have suffered serious “alterations.” Adolescents and young people – who emigrate more frequently – “replaced” their family role of “studying” or “building identity” to become the family “providers,” a role that would normally belong to their parents.
The exodus “modifies life projects,” affects “friendship and couple relationships” and “transforms the ways in which development tasks are faced at certain stages of life,” Dusu warned. The consequence for the young people who remain is total “demotivation for studies.” When questioned about their achievements, says the academic, the adolescents’ response is that they are “waiting to emigrate.”
Dusu gives an even more eloquent example. Among the primary school children investigated, to whom “the dynamic of the five wishes” was applied, the majority responded first: “leave the country.”
Many children dream “of a reality that they do not have” and use future migration “as a defense mechanism known as fantasy.” When referring to their life projects, the adolescents of Santiago de Cuba “visualize themselves in another place” and talk about plans only possible outside the country.
The academic says that she has noticed “identity confusion” and little certainty when it comes to answering “where do they see themselves” in the future. “When one does not fulfill a development task, the life cycle is difficult, life projects are not determined because the desire to emigrate does not give space for this,” she adds.
In fact, Dusu says, when plans to emigrate fail or are delayed, children and adolescents are the first to experience frustration. There is “observable depression” in the cases that the Universidad de Oriente has studied, “conflicts” and “psychopathological repercussions.” Minors are often victims of “anxiety and quarrels” with those who stay or, via telephone, with their emigrated relatives.
The academic says that she has noticed “identity confusion” and little certainty when it comes to answering “where do they see themselves” in the future
Cuba has become a country of “transnational” and “dispersed families,” Dusu concludes, without daring to mention the reasons why people from Santiago emigrate (not only abroad, but also to the west of the Island), or to attribute any responsibility to the Government. Many “abandon their careers and jobs to wait for that realization.” Others “stop working thanks to the remittances they receive.”
For Dusu, the émigré lives in “sweetened, magnified” scenarios and not in reality. They need to “take the opportunity of the present,” she argues, and not risk everything for “the idea of prosperity outside the place of origin.”
The only figures that Sierra Maestra cites about this situation are those of the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), which it accuses of being “out of date.” Santiago, the second most populated province in Cuba, had 1,040,897 inhabitants at the end of 2022. It took one year – in December 2023 – for the figure to drop to 1,034,786. In that year only 5,230 people from Santiago died. The others left. “The rhythm of the numbers,” the newspaper states, will produce “incalculable consequences.”
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