Cuba's protests are unprecedented but the future for newly defiant Cubans is anything but certain

For months the refrain across Cuba has been "¿hasta cuando?"

How much longer?

Cubans are used to being endlessly patient and inventive in the face of an often dysfunctional daily existence and crushing shortages.

But over the past several years that ability to overcome misfortune has been replaced by a stone-faced reality that life has become as difficult as during any point in their embattled lives.

Relations with the United States often act as a barometer for how optimistically or pessimistically Cubans view their future. When then-President Barack Obama famously declared during his 2016 trip to Havana that he had come "to bury the last remnants of the Cold War in the Americas," people across the island breathed a sigh of relief.

They hoped a long-awaited easing of tensions with Washington might lead to their own government relaxing some of the endless restrictions on life in the communist-run island.