In a personal diary entry, Cuban writer Lien Estrada reflects on the disappearance at sea of her cousin's father while trying to reach the United States and what it means to have a fatherland under oppression. She argues that no land is worthwhile under slavery.
Lien Estrada, in her diary published on Havana Times on February 25, 2026, shares a family story marked by tragedy. The father of her youngest cousin, Rogoberto Verdecia, disappeared at sea on the day the child was born, while attempting to reach Florida in a small boat. According to Estrada, there were eight boats tied together with ropes, but the last two broke loose—his and that of a friend. The news was broadcast on Radio Martí, reading the list of Cubans who arrived alive and those missing.
The family from the north regularly sends shoes for the cousin, and on the island they shower him with affection for his personal merits. Estrada links this story to other incidents, like the March 13th tugboat and numerous raft attempts to cross the strait. This, she says, makes Cuba a lamentable case due to past and present events.
When a friend asked what fatherland meant to her, Estrada replied: “The place where one is born, and that offers me the opportunity to live and to fulfill myself as a human being.” She concludes that without that possibility, she cannot call that land her own, and many Cubans seek others on other continents to exist. She quotes José Martí: “Without a fatherland, but without a master.” Martí fought for a fatherland he did not know, having left the island at 16.
Estrada is convinced that under slavery no land is good, neither one's own nor a foreign one. Millions of Cubans have emigrated or wish to do so, which she sees as evidence of a suffocating place. She contrasts it with Germany, where 95% of the population travels freely and returns. She quotes Charles Bukowski: “It is a feat just to put on your underwear when you get up each morning.” Under an eternal yoke, she says, it is hard even to wake up and work.