MIAMI — Decades have passed since the first wave of Cuban exiles fled communism for South Florida, but as negotiations between the Trump administration and Cuba over possible changes on the island garner headlines, the yearning in Miami to see a free Cuba remains as strong as ever.

Ebelio left Havana in 1980, never imagining the life he would build from scratch in Hialeah — with a wife and six children, four of whom became doctors. Now, 46 years later, he says he hopes that if conditions change and Cuba’s economy improves, he can return to the island.

At age 67, one particular reason drives that desire.

“I want to go back and die in Havana,” Ebelio said. “I long to feel the warm welcome of my people. I want to be reunited with my sister and my cousins, and I want to walk the streets of Havana again.”

Ebelio, who asked to be identified only by his first name, said he left behind his parents’ house in Havana, where his only sister still lives. In his four decades living in the United States, he said he has often felt he doesn’t truly belong in the country — even while living in Hialeah, the most Cuban city in the U.S. — though he acknowledges the opportunities it has given him to raise a family and build a decent life.

Since the triumph of the Castro revolution in 1959, Cubans have left the island in waves: some legally, others risking their lives on boats and rafts, or attempting to cross borders through Central America. Many recent arrivals, especially in the last few decades, often have family on the island.

How Cuban Americans in South Florida view the ongoing Trump negotiations depends on many factors, including how long they have lived in the U.S. and whether they still have family in Cuba.

Two weeks?

Reactions among Cuban Americans in South Florida to the possibility of major changes in Cuba — on Friday, President Donald Trump suggested it could happen in as little as two weeks — range from cautious optimism to a readiness to take an active role in transforming the island.

Many Cubans interviewed by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald in the past week imagine contributing to rebuilding Cuba and bringing the expertise they acquired living abroad, many since their teens. Others want to return to settle on the island when they believe the right conditions exist — conditions that differ for each person depending on their personal history and immigration status.

Social media has fostered a closer relationship between island Cubans and those living abroad, resulting in a greater understanding of the population’s hardships, which include daily blackouts lasting 20 hours or more, a public health crisis and malnutrition that is affecting children and the elderly most severely.

“If there’s a change, I’ll go back as a volunteer,” said Sisi Colomina, 59, a university graduate who works for a catering services company. “If I sacrifice here and put in my effort, how could I not do it there, where more hands are needed? I want to be part of that change.”

Colomina, a U.S. citizen who has been living in Miami for eight years, said she stays in frequent contact with Cuba because her 80-year-old mother lives there.

She’s well aware of the economic crisis gripping the island, where piles of garbage rot openly on streets, surgeries are on hold and the lack of fuel has forced people to go back 19th century conditions and cook their food with firewood.

“Most Cubans are like patients in intensive care. They require all kinds of assistance, including psychological help, because no one can be well after so long in a survival situation,” Colomina said.

Gradual changes

The reason many Cuban Americans are hopeful change may come to Cuba after so many decades is the attention the island is getting from the Trump administration.

After the U.S. military snatched Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro from Caracas earlier this year, the administration turned its attention to Cuba. In short order the U.S. ended vital oil shipments from Venezuela to the island, then successfully threatened Mexico with tariffs, which ended Mexican shipments to Cuba as well.

Cuba’s economy, already in the midst of an existential crisis, went into a tailspin. Trump administration officials have used the opportunity to open negotiations, honing in on the grandson of Raul Castro, whom they see as perhaps having enough clout to get Havana to enact market reforms in exchange for the easing of U.S. sanctions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, himself a Cuban American from West Miami, has been leading those efforts.

After State Department officials met with Castro’s grandson on the sidelines of the Caribbean leaders’ annual CARICOM conference in Saint Kitts and Nevis last week, Rubio said the U.S. understands changes may need to be gradual.

“Cuba needs to change,” Rubio told the Caribbean leaders. “And it doesn’t have to change everything at once. It doesn’t have to change overnight. We’re all mature and realistic.”

From skepticism to confidence

For decades, many Cuban exiles viewed any attempt at rapprochement between the United States and Cuba with deep suspicion. In the past, those engaging in talks with the Cuban government — even to secure the release of political prisoners — were often branded “dialogueros,” a label carrying a strong pejorative meaning within the exile community. Frustration has long lingered among exiles over what they see as a Cuban government strategy of seeking concessions without making meaningful commitments — a dynamic that many believe undermined the Obama-era opening that restored diplomatic relations between the two countries. Nonetheless, the current talks with representatives of the Cuban government has resonated differently, in good part because the chief negotiator for the United States is Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who grew up in Miami and who enjoys broad credibility in the exile community.

Reflecting a hope for a careful transition, Cuban American businessman Yurek Vázquez, who lives in Miami, supports a process modeled after Venezuela’s.

After Maduro’s capture, his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was named interim president. Trump has praised her leadership in opening the country’s oil industry to the United States. Venezuela has also taken steps to release political prisoners and dissidents from prison, and on Friday both countries announced they are reestablishing diplomatic relations.

“I have tremendous confidence in how Trump and Marco Rubio are handling these negotiations,” Vázquez said.

Vázquez, 49, who came to the United States at age 14 in 1991, added that he now “thinks like an American” and sees military intervention in Cuba — once viewed by many exiles as the only way to rid the island of its communist regime — only as a last resort.

Vázquez said “pain” prevents many exiles from seeing the need to negotiate with the current socialist government: “We have to rethink the strategy. Do we want revenge or do we want change?”

Some Cuban Americans have little hope that, even with negotiations with the U.S., freedom and democracy will return to Cuba. Nevertheless, some say they would return if things change enough.

“We’ve never lived in democracy or freedom, but if the negotiations bring economic improvements that allow us to go to the supermarket, find food and buy it with our own money, that would be enough for me to return,” said Jacqueline Ventura, 47, who has been in the United States for five years and is a permanent resident.

Originally from the western province of Matanzas, Ventura is not satisfied with her life in Miami.

“I’m not happy here. My husband is still there, and I can’t bring him,” she said, noting that her husband’s effort to join her in the U.S. is on hold because of Trump administration changes that have drastically restricted immigration from Cuba. “My family is there. I’m saving to buy a bigger house so we can be reunited.”

Ventura, who obtained her green card under the Biden administration after entering the country through the U.S.-Mexico border, says she feels she has no life in the United States.

“I work 24 hours a day, seven days a week as an elder caregiver, earning $5 an hour, and I have nothing. I don’t feel like I belong here. The system doesn’t want us,” she said. “If Cuba ever saw economic improvements like Venezuela’s, I would leave in the blink of an eye.”

Ventura added that her decision to return to Cuba would not be about democracy or freedom. “Cubans don’t know what that is,” she said. “I just want food in Cuban supermarkets, but today that’s impossible. If we don’t send money from abroad and food to our relatives, they barely survive.”

Ventura’s story reflects the struggles many Cuban immigrants face building a stable life in the United States because of the high cost of living in South Florida and the constant pressure to support family back home.

Amid the broader debate over Cuba’s future and how international events — from U.S. talks with Havana to regional conflicts in the Middle East — are shaping opinions in the exile community, not everyone is optimistic about the possibility of change.

Rosa, another woman from Matanzas who arrived in Homestead two and a half years ago and asked to be identified only by her first name due to concerns for her family in Cuba, expressed skepticism about the prospects for meaningful change in Cuba. Although she once hoped change might come, recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and the unfolding global tensions have reinforced her doubts.

“Even though there’s a lot of talk about negotiations between the United States and Cuba, the blackouts continue, needs on the island persist, people keep suffering and nothing improves; nothing really changes,” she said. Rosa, a 48-year-old former economist in Cuba, works in a kitchen in Hollywood and supports her siblings in Cuba.

She would be willing to return to Cuba if it had a prosperous economy, she said. But for now, her priority is keeping her loved ones safe, sending them food, medicine and money to buy whatever is still available in Matanzas.

“The people have been suffering for a long time, always, but what is happening now with diseases, lack of food and the absence of gasoline is worse than ever,” she said. “Cuba is unlivable. Sometimes I go days without speaking to my family, the power goes out constantly and there’s no way to communicate.”

Her brothers, she added, are “emaciated” despite the money and food she sends them nearly every month.

Getting rid of the military

José Azze, a Hialeah resident who emigrated from Cuba in 1971 at age seven, maintains very strong ties with his relatives on the island. Azze expects changes in Cuba but views the island’s future cautiously.

“They have to get rid of all the top generals,” Azze said, expressing his conviction that removing or capturing Cuba’s appointed president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, whom he described as “just a puppet,” would not by itself change the fundamental structure of control in Cuba.

“People will see immediate changes if they get rid of the military, because they’ll have electricity and food,” he said. “But rebuilding infrastructure… that will take 20 years to return to normal.”

Azze, 62, used to visit Cuba almost every month until he stopped in December, mainly due to fears over the spread of the diseases on the island, as well as lack of transportation. His relatives — college graduates living in the eastern city of Holguín — survive on the $100 a month he and his family send them.

“People would be happy with 10 hours of electricity a day, they’d be happy with rice and beans — but they don’t even have that,” Azze said.

The nonnegotiables

When it comes to the terms of a transition on the island, many Cuban Americans are adamant about the kinds of compromises that can’t be made.

Ileana Pérez Drago, a 62-year-old architect, believes members of the Castro family, Díaz-Canel and senior government official should have no role in a transition.

“The Castros cannot be in the picture. That is non-negotiable,” said Pérez Drago, who left Cuba 31 years ago and has lived in Miami for eight years. “I do agree that officials who can lead a transition, like diplomats not involved in repression, could be included.”

She said the release of more than 1,200 political prisoners and anyone jailed for criticizing the government is another non-negotiable condition.

For Pérez Drago, change in Cuba cannot be just about economics. It must be political as well. She said the Communist Party must be dissolved and people should be allowed to form new political parties leading to free elections — something currently impossible under Cuba’s one‑party system, in which no genuine opposition parties are permitted to exist.

“There has to be a clear agenda, with dates,” she said, noting that in Venezuela no concrete timeline has been established for a transition to democracy, a situation she believes should not be repeated in Cuba. “That leaves huge uncertainty, and Cuba, after 67 years, cannot be in involved that nonsense.”

As an architect, she also recognizes the need for outside help to rebuild the island’s badly deteriorated infrastructure.

“A kind of Marshall Plan is needed,” she says, referring to the U.S. effort to help rebuild Western Europe after World War II. “But any change will be huge; having food in the refrigerator will be a lot for Cubans.”

‘You can’t trust communists’

Tony Haber, who owns a liquor business, sees the potential for change with caution, emphasizing the importance of political safeguards alongside economic reforms.

Haber, 52, who arrived in the United States from Cuba as a teenager and lives in Miami, said it’s important to push for the U.S. to push for political change.

“You can’t trust communists. Their strategy is to drag things out,” he said, adding that any economic reforms should be paired with free elections monitored by the United States.

“If there’s only an economic opening, the same people will remain in power and get richer with U.S. money,” he said. Cuba needs a supervised transition with legal safeguards for investors like him, he said, who could inject life into a revitalized economy.

Haber is co-owner of Ocean Cask Spirits, a liquor company that produces rums and tequilas.

“The idea is that a company like mine could create jobs on the island,” he said.

While many exiles long to return, with plans to volunteer or help create jobs, all cling to hope for Cuba, tempered by decades of hardship.

As they wait for a miracle — whether a military intervention, a regime change, or negotiations toward a reformed economy — they continue supporting their families back home, who are enduring what they describe as the most unlivable conditions in the 67 years of the Revolution, a reality that has grown increasingly desperate over time.

“Cubans survive on what families abroad, like mine and many others, send them each month,” said Ebelio, the man who longs to die in Havana. “They barely get by. If they don’t receive food, they won’t survive.”

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