Cuban mother's cry for help goes viral, illustrates crumbling economy and infrastructure

A video of a Cuban mother crying for help has gone viral on social media in recent days, especially among the Cuban-American community in South Florida.

Amelia Calzadilla, mother of three, recently took to social media to complain about the Cuban regime’s corruption and extreme inequality.

Journalists reported seeing a group of regime agents in front of her house on Monday, and reports indicate she has been summoned by Cuban authorities to appear at a police station for questioning. 

Since July 2021 after the government arbitrarily raised the electricity rates in the country, Calzadilla, who works as a professional translator, has struggled to pay a bill that exceeds her earning power.

She says the electrical bill has sometimes gone as high as 6,000 Cuban pesos.

One of the reasons her electrical bill is so high is because the building she lives in provides no gas power, a fact Calzadilla says the Cuban people are paying for as they are forced to cook everything with electricity. 

She also complained about the increasing blackouts in the country, saying her little ones cannot even go to school and that she has difficulty feeding them since, she says,  “I have nothing to cook with.”

“Neither the Minister of Energy and Mines nor anyone cared that the buildings they built ten years ago in Calzada de Buenos Aires and Consejo Arango [Havana] did not have gas,” the mother said, referring to poor and inefficient infrastructure in her Havana neighborhood. 

But her cry for help went beyond electricity prices and escalated to lash out against the main leaders of the communist regime: “Don't the resources belong to the people? Isn't that what the socialist state enterprise and all that nonsense says...? How long are the people going to continue paying for your comforts!?”

She then turned to comment about the regime’s lack of investment in its own country. 

“Foreign investment? Well, invest in public companies. People want to be paid in dollars, which is what moves the world. I don't want to talk anymore about [communist] continuity, nor about the heart, nor about the head of a turkey. People want to eat, to have a home and be able to pay for their food because I don't want to be given food as a gift,”  said Calzadilla, who has to rely on her exiled family to survive.

Several Cuban artists showed their support on Friday for the desperate mother who lashed out against the island rulers and the inefficiency of the communist regime.

Grammy winner, Randy Malcolm, of the popular duo Gente de Zona, stated on Instagram when sharing Calzadilla's video, “This is the feeling of an entire country.”

“Some with courage express it, while others out of fear keep quiet, but at the end of the day, everyone’s feeling is the same. Cuba holds no more…” denounced the artist, who ended his publication asking for “Freedom for Cuba!”

Calzadilla seems to have echoed the sentiments of other mothers inside the island who cannot provide for their children. 

Shortly after her video went viral,  Cubans on social media soon began to use the hashtag #AmeliaSomosTodos to express their support for the bravery of the woman in a country where thousands are languishing in prison for having raised their voices to demand freedom on July 11, 2021.

“I have seen Amelia's video. I have two children. I have spent the whole night crying", said Yesenia, another Cuban mother who broke her silence on social media, moved by Calzadilla’s video.

“Her feelings are my feelings, I feel identified with her,” added Yesenia in a brief clip, shared on Facebook.

Another social media user, Grethel Mustelier, moved by Amelia's viral video, said her “life condition is not that of a person. I live as animals do.” 

The mother of two young children occupied a house built by the state and is being evicted, she said.

Cuban academic, Miryorly García joined the parent's sentiment on Facebook and said they “are not alone” and warned authorities to “listen to them” and added, “the [Cuban] people do not want them and cannot take it anymore!”

“Some parents prefer to hide their identity, but support Amelia Calzadilla,” wrote exiled physician Lucio Enriquez Nodarse, who posted on Facebook another video of a Cuban raising his voice.

Calzadilla acknowledged that she could face harsh repression, but added she “no longer cared if the police or the DTI [Technical Department of Investigations] came to look for her. 

“I don't care because I don't steal from anyone nor do I live with what anyone gives me. I am fed up with it.”