"On the news they will say the waves are two meters. They say there are dangerous waves. Always....That it is dangerous for little boats. And you go to the Malecon and see that it is like a plate. They say that as if never, never will you have an easy getaway." - Rene Navarro
Though Cuba may be an island paradise for tourists and the elite, most Cubans struggle not only to survive, in a country largely cut off from global society, but to leave.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a decades long supporter of Cuba, severe shortages of resources transformed Cuban society and in the early 1990s the country fell into a crippling economic crisis known as the Special Period.
Ondas (Waves) explores youth as they, unable to receive visas to leave the island, escape the country through electronic music and drugs. Driven to live life to the fullest, they are of a generation defined by the Special Period and modern Cuban society.
Their drugs include L-dopa, the readily available and government sponsored Parkinson’s drug that Fidel Castro, who had Parkinson’s, reportedly took to survive.
With L-dopa, both the youth and Fidel were searching for life, as both were dying.
Because many of these youth feel stuck in limbo. They hope for reforms but face an uncertain future. Limited internet access offers glimpses of the outside world, fueling aspirations and frustrations. Young Cubans grapple with their place in a changing world, seeking to define themselves.
In recent years, Cuba’s youth unemployment rate has hovered around twice the national average. According to government estimates, the official average monthly salary is about 700 pesos ($25). “You go [out] every day, and you think it will be different,” says 31-year-old Rene Navarro, “but it’s always the same shit.”
Today, lack of resources and economic opportunities still remain arguably the largest motivator for an escape from Cuba. Nearly a 1/2 million Cubans fled in 2022 and 2023, when Cuba experienced its largest exodus since the 1980s due to an ongoing economic crisis, with soaring inflation alongside shortages of food and medicine.
