At the beginning of last year, Cubans already represented the largest group of residency applicants in Uruguay.
SANTA CLARA, Cuba. – At the end of last year, the public intervention of a Uruguayan councilor from the municipality of Santa Rosa unleashed a strong controversy on social networks and local media. The official stated that the residents of this place “could no longer stand” the behavior of a group of Cubans that caused “annoying noises” and “inappropriate waste management.” The regional channel Anpi TV, which covered the controversy, echoed the criteria of the counterpart: the Cubans settled in this community, belonging to the department of Canelones.
“Our country is going through a crisis that encompasses everything. We have arrived with the intention of building,” said to Mario Echevarría as a group statement on behalf of the more than a thousand migrants from the Island who reside there. “We have come here to work,” stressed another interviewee.
The episode highlighted a phenomenon that has intensified in recent years: the arrival of hundreds of Cubans who settle permanently in the small southern nation, especially as a result of the recent recession of the US program of parole humanitarian. In fact, the latest census confirms that Cuba is the third country with the highest number of migrants residing in Uruguay after Venezuela and Argentina, and since 2024 it has occupied second place in terms of residences granted, according to public data of the National Immigration Directorate.
Three years ago, Santa Clara theater actress Lizandra Martín headed to Montevideo on a journey with her husband, via Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, one of the main departure points for Cubans to South America since it does not require an entry visa. “The journey was like camping through the jungle straight to Brazil,” he remembers. The journey is generally made in small groups that are transported by buses to cities such as Boa Vista, Manaus or São Paulo, where they usually stay for a few hours or days, and then enter the Uruguayan borders. Once there, they have the right to apply for refuge at checkpoints and obtain a provisional ID in process. “We chose Uruguay because it is a country in which, even if you do not have residency, you do have the right to work, to live your normal life,” highlights the interviewee.
At the beginning of last year, Cubans already represented the largest group of applicants for the residency program promoted by the Government of this country. a provision approved to regulate thousands of foreigners who had requested refuge, but who did not qualify to obtain it. The news was reason enough for José Carlos Mendieta, a young computer scientist also from Villa Clara, to decide to pay for the trip to Uruguay in mid-August, after being denied a Spanish visa.
Five months earlier, three other friends from his career had arrived in Montevideo along the same irregular migratory route. In the capital’s neighborhood of La Comercial, however, a rather austere beginning awaited him: a shared room with his study colleagues, a mattress on the floor, canned food and long walks in search of work to pay in installments the debts contracted during the journey. “I did it to save the dollar that public transportation costs here. To one it seems like a lot of money, because in Cuba you are used to having to work,” he says.
Like almost all newcomers, his current lodging consists of a rented room, known there as “boarding houses,” for which he pays about $250 a month. These low-cost accommodations usually receive migrants and temporary workers and, although they offer the minimum conditions for living, rooms such as the kitchen, bathroom or use of the refrigerator function as shared spaces. José Carlos details that “they are like a shelter,” but for Cubans, accustomed to multiple precariousness, they really “look like a hotel room,” he describes. “There are more than six Cubans in my pension, including families with children who arrived last month. I would advise those who come here to have some money on hand to get started.”
Since the end of the 19th century, Uruguay It earned the epithet of “the Switzerland of America” for its exceptional characteristics, both political and for its high levels of well-being, comparable to that of the European country. Its prosperity has also been reflected in consumer prices and the general cost of living, which are among the highest in the region and far exceed those of Argentina or Brazil.
An AFP article published last March highlights that for some time now the “American Dream” of Cubans has headed precisely to the southern nation. The search for the “Uruguayan dream,” according to this report, is mainly motivated by the rapid job placement, the tranquility and “the deep solidarity” that is perceived there. However, in some social media groups, hostile messages have recently appeared that demand to restrict the access of migrants from the Island. “It is a pro-migrant country, but you also encounter xenophobia,” clarifies Lizandra Martín.
In one of these digital communities, specifically in the group Cubans in Uruguayalso from Villa Clara, Yinet Jiménez, who has lived there for three years and is dedicated to marketing consulting for sales, made a call respect for the Cuban community and especially for the hundreds of professionals who sometimes must demonstrate a competence that is not questioned by others. He also detailed in your YouTube channel who arrived with barely $500 in his pocket and the dream of building his digital company in a country where he could grow without hiding, with freedom.
In one of his videos he details that he does not consider Uruguay among the countries where “there is nothing to do to earn a living.” “Here you will always find something to work on, there will always be someone who will give you a job. If I complained about Uruguay I would be ungrateful,” adds Yinet, via WhatsApp. “Here you learn to look for salary improvements, to find opportunities, something that Cubans are sometimes not used to.”
A good part of the Cubans who go to Uruguay end up entering the labor market thanks to their ability to adapt to “do whatever,” confirms Lizandra. On social networks you can see experiences of successful ventures and small businesses such as hair salons, restaurants or remittance or parcel agencies to the Island. “I arrived without a dollar in my pocket and I already have my own carpentry shop. I’m not rich, but I work for myself,” exemplified on Facebook a Cuban named Wil Urguelles in response to a newcomer who requested advice on starting to work there. Also on his Facebook profile, the youtuber and content creator “Frank El Mákina” has positively valued his decision to leave the Island three years ago to settle in Uruguay where he managed to create his own company: “Now I live in a free country, without a dictatorship, with one of the best democracies in the world. An economically stable country.”
Even so, a large part of Cubans highlight that what hits them the most is the high cost of rent or food compared to the minimum wages of any newcomer. “It is hard for a professional to have to clean bathrooms or run errands, but it would have been worse to continue eating a cable with a salary of 6,000 pesos,” says José Carlos, who has so far found a job in a small restaurant where he is paid about 24,000 Uruguayan pesos, the approximate equivalent of $600. In addition to personal expenses, he must allocate a certain monthly percentage to send some money to Cuba, “the bag that all of us who manage to get out of there carry,” he laments.
“When you get a job with minimum wage and pay for your food and something else, you can always help your family in Cuba,” confirms Lizandra. “Sometimes you’re tight, but it’s possible. Everything is up to each individual.” Last year, this young actress became the mother of a girl whom she named Ominira, which in the Yoruba language means “freedom.” “Today we are here, building a new life. Here I was born again: older, more conscious and more truthful,” he summarizes. “Uruguay is small on the map, but immense when it becomes home. I thank it for welcoming us without labels, like children who were looking for land to sow themselves again.”
