Having escaped Cuba in 1993 at the age of 37, Fernández later settled in Miami, where she became one of the most vocal critics of the communist system she once lived under. Reflecting on decades of rule, she described Cuba’s ongoing reality as a prolonged historical anomaly—one that, in her view, has come at the expense of the Cuban people.

Her story echoes that of Svetlana Alliluyeva, the daughter of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who defected to the United States in 1967 and publicly denounced both communism and her father’s legacy.

Fernández continues to call for meaningful change in Cuba, arguing that those who lived under communist rule understand its consequences far better than those who defend it from afar. From her perspective, the lived experience of repression, economic hardship, and lack of freedom cannot be dismissed or reinterpreted.