Camila Cabello is using her platform to raise awareness for her home country of Cuba.
In a Friday (Feb. 20) post on Instagram, the Fifth Harmony alum shared photos of herself as a young girl living in the Caribbean nation alongside present-day pictures of Cuban citizens protesting conditions under the current government. “There is so much going on here at home and so much I can say about the heartbreaking things the immigrant community is experiencing here in the US,” she wrote. “I also feel a personal responsibility to speak about what’s happening in Cuba, I still have family on the island that we speak to and send medicine, food and clothes to.”
“It has been 67 years of a failing dictatorship and an oppressive regime,” Cabello continued. “The Cuban people are suffering in an echo chamber where no one can hear them because to speak is to risk your life. Many people are starving, looking for food in trash heaps, and the only way to survive is having relatives ship you boxes of medicine because not even the hospitals have medicine.”
The pop singer went on to say that sometimes the country’s electricity is “gone for so long that food spoils and water becomes scarce” and wrote that when some “people have peacefully protested, they have disappeared or been put behind bars, some as young as 13 years old.”
“This is a reality where a post online costs you your life,” she added. “The Cuban people have lived without dignity and without hope for too long. It’s no wonder so many Cubans have thrown themselves into shark infested waters, making boats out of tires and sticks and risking their lives for freedom.”
Cabello ended her post by encouraging fans to donate to Caritas Cuba, a Catholic humanitarian organization.
Cuba’s infrastructure changed forever in 1959, when Fidel Castro assumed power after the Cuban Revolution. He was succeeded by his brother, Raúl Castro, after which current president Miguel Díaz-Canel took office in 2018 — although Raúl still holds a seat in the National Assembly as well as the title of Army General.
Cabello’s ties to Cuba are deeply personal, as she lived there until she was about 7 years old, after which she moved with her mom to Miami.
“I didn’t speak any English,” she recalled to Grazia in 2021. “My parents brought me here for the same reason that a lot of migrant families immigrate, which is just there’s opportunities that aren’t available in the country where you live, or violence. My parents were looking for a better life for me.”
