I was born and grew up in Cuba. I immigrated to the US, but I still visit family and friends when I can. I communicate with them regularly. As someone who has

I was born and grew up in Cuba. I immigrated to the US, but I still visit family and friends when I can. I communicate with them regularly. As someone who has first-hand experience let me tell you that Cubans do NOT have all the food and medicine they need. The situation is pretty bad. I know this because I’ve been there, in real-life, interacting with real people. I’ve gone to a Cuban grocery store with my family and seen the shelves empty. You may go as a tourist and have a very different experience, because the government has setup “tourist-only” stores and hotels with very high prices that a Cuban person would never be able to afford and in some cases not even be allowed to enter. I know this because I’ve witnessed my family and friends being denied entry into a store because they did not have a foreign passport. The Cuban government has been incredibly successful in painting this picture of Cuba as an anti-capitalist success story. I’m always surprised by the amount of people (especially Europeans) that I speak to and think Cuba is this great pristine place that capitalism never tainted. People who often flat out refuse to believe me when I tell them how bad things are, despite them not ever having set a foot on the island. I wonder where the heck they are getting all these fantasy stories from.