Most mornings,\u00a0Maylen Rond\u00f3n begins the day with a cortadito.<\/p>\n
Along Westheimer in the heart of Houston, a Cuban flag hangs in the front window of\u00a0Az\u00facar, a Cuban bakery where Rond\u00f3n begins her day at 8 a.m. sharp. Behind the counter, memorabilia from the island lines the walls, from a framed image of the Cuban flag to a painting of Celia Cruz smiling with her signature turbante, a headpiece associated with salsa rumba dancers.<\/p>\n
The scent of freshly baked Cuban bread and guava pastries fills the bakery, drawing regulars back day after day.<\/p>\n
But there was a time, Rond\u00f3n said, when none of this felt familiar.<\/p>\n
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Before Houston, she had left the island to stay in Bolivia for a few years. She never imagined Houston would become the city where she would eventually settle in 2022. It was simply a place where she had friends who could take her in. A friend who frequented Az\u00facar told her they were hiring, and the owners welcomed her \u201cas if she were family,\u201d giving her ese rinconcito \u2014 the small corner she felt she needed.<\/p>\n
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Maylen Rond\u00f3n stirs a freshly prepared cortadito behind the counter on Sept. 10, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Daniella Jim\u00e9nez\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started working here, that’s when I started reconnecting again with my people,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in the four years I’ve been here, the Cuban community has grown enormously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rond\u00f3n, 30, is part of a broader shift unfolding across Houston. Among Harris County\u2019s 10 largest foreign-born groups in the latest Census Bureau estimates<\/a>, the Cuban population had the second-fastest growth rate, behind only Venezuelans.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The reasons are layered. Economic hardship pushed more Cubans to leave the island, while changes in U.S. policy and migration routes brought more through the Southwest border instead of entry points like Florida. For some, Houston became more than a stop along the way, offering jobs, affordable housing and a growing Latino community that made it appealing to stay.<\/p>\n READ MORE: How Hondurans created a Houston hub and are dealing with Trump’s deportation threats<\/a><\/p>\n The county\u2019s Cuban-born population reached nearly 41,000 in the latest American Community Survey estimate<\/a>, compared to 25,000 in the 2019 five-year estimate. Among the top 10 groups, only Venezuelans grew faster, with their population more than doubling over the same period.\u00a0<\/p>\n Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute who has studied immigration trends in Greater Houston, says the rising numbers don\u2019t surprise her. She points to her report in 2023<\/a> that showed how the \u201cWalking Generation,\u201d a new wave of Cuban migrants, contributed to this fast-growing group coming into Houston.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The term was\u00a0coined<\/a> by Cuban journalist Rachel Pereda to differentiate the \u201cwalking\u201d wave of Cuban immigrants through Latin America from those who traveled to the U.S. by sea \u2014 the balseros of the 1990s.<\/p>\n New immigration routes<\/p>\n After the Obama administration ended its \u201cwet foot, dry foot\u201d policy<\/a> in 2017, Cuban migration patterns began to change. More Cubans began traveling through Central America and Mexico toward the Southwest border instead of Florida.<\/p>\n Another turning point, Lacarte explained, came in November 2021, when Nicaragua eliminated visa requirements<\/a> for Cubans, allowing many to fly to Managua before continuing north.<\/p>\n The changing immigration route became especially visible after the pandemic. Cuba\u2019s tourism-dependent economy was devastated by travel restrictions, adding to financial and social hardships that erupted into protests in 2021<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Rond\u00f3n, like others, fled to other countries in Latin America.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2018, she was in her early twenties when she took the step to build a better future for her family back in Jiguan\u00ed, a small town located in eastern Cuba. She left and spent four years in Bolivia, where she had her son. When she decided to continue north, Rond\u00f3n said, she crossed the Dari\u00e9n Gap, a jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama. There, she traveled from country to country before reaching Houston in 2022.<\/p>\n READ MORE: More than 1 in 4 Harris County residents are immigrants. See what countries they come from<\/a><\/p>\n By then, what she wanted from the place she would later call home had become clearer: steady work, a way to help her family and the chance to build a better future for her son.<\/p>\n \u201cI think when you become a parent, you set aside being yourself to raise your children,\u201d she said, wrapping her arms around herself. \u201cMore than anything, we try to give him a future. The one that many of us couldn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n