In Cuba, Yismari worked as a cultural ambassador in her hometown, promoting arts and cultural activities. This work was particularly hard during the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many events were cancelled, so Yismari started her own business, baking goods and selling them from her home. On top of the economic challenges, government policy during the pandemic left many Cubans without access to food, medicine, and basic resources. So on July 11, 2021, Yismari joined fellow Cubans in peaceful protests against the government.

According to a Human Rights Watch report (hrw.org):

On July 11, 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets in the largest nationwide demonstrations against the government since the 1959 Cuban revolution. These peaceful protests were a response to longstanding restrictions on rights, food and medicine scarcity, and the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government replied. . . with brutal, systematic repression and censorship. . . Over 1,400 people were detained, more than 700 of whom remained behind bars as of July 2022. Cuban courts have confirmed the convictions against more than 380 protesters and bystanders, including several children. Several organizations reported countrywide internet outages on July 11, followed by erratic connectivity, including restrictions on social media and messaging platforms.

This report documents a wide range of human rights violations against well-known government critics and ordinary citizens, including harassment, arbitrary detention, abuse-ridden prosecutions, beatings, and other cases of ill-treatment that in some cases constitute torture.

Yismari confirms that Cubans lack freedom of speech, so when they speak out against the government, they are silenced. In fact, when a local police officer learned of Yismari’s participation in the protests, he began following her, even showing up at her house. She felt insecure and afraid, especially as a single mother to a two-year-old daughter, so Yismari and her daughter, Isabella, left Cuba in 2022. They traveled for fifteen days, mostly by bus and on foot, before arriving in the US.