Celia Cruz (1925 – 2003) was a Cuban-American singer who rose from her humble beginnings in Havana to become the “Queen of Salsa.” She was an icon in both of her countries, and left an indelible mark on the world of Latin music.
However, not all notable musicians get their own quarter. For instance, Selena Quintanilla – a Latin music icon in her own right – is not one of the 20 women recognized by the US Mint’s American Women Quarters Program.
So, let’s discuss what sets the life of Celia Cruz apart from the crowd.
Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born October 21, 1925 in Havana, Cuba. Her father, Simón, was a railway stoker – one of those responsible for keeping a steam locomotive’s fire burning.
Her mother, Catalina, was a homemaker and, as it happened, of Haitian descent. She was the first to introduce music to Celia, her siblings, and the cousins living with them by way of Catalina’s lullabies and other soothing songs.
Celia was the oldest of the 13 children living in her house. Her mother reported that young Celia began singing in the middle of the night before she was even a year old. Eventually, she helped her mother soothe the younger children in the household with her own singing.
Cruz’ musical “education” took place at a time when the Cuban music scene was diverse and vibrant. She learned music and songs traditional to Cuba, of course, but – to her Catholic father’s chagrin – she also learned songs in the Santeria tradition.
Celia Cruz’ teenage years were a time of her being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, she won numerous singing contests and prizes in Cuba, and her mother encouraged her to continue to enter these sorts of competitions.
On the other hand, her father did not want her to become a professional singer, as such a career was not a particularly respectable one in Cuban society at the time. So, he urged her to study and become a teacher instead.
Dutifully, Celia studied hard, graduated high school, and enrolled at Cuba’s National Teachers’ College. Unfortunately for Simón, Celia’s fame from her radio and live music appearances grew too large to ignore.
Because of the growing fervor and her own ambitions, Celia resolved that she could not finish school and pursue teaching as a career. However, she loved her father and did not want to disappoint him or rebuke his wishes. So, she chose to remain in school, but moved to the National Conservatory of Music in Havana in 1947.
Fate, however, had already made up its mind for Celia Cruz. One of her professors at the conservatory told her that she needed to pursue a full-time career singing, rather than staying at the academy. So, she left, and began her journey to the apex of salsa music.
Early working years
Celia made her first recordings in 1948. She spent the next two years with a touring musical group, Las Mulatas Del Fuego, and traveled throughout Latin America as a singer.
Then, she got her big break in 1950. La Sonora Matancera, one of Cuba’s most acclaimed orchestras, hired her to replace its lead singer.
At the time, there was concern that the young Cruz would struggle to fill the shoes of the previous lead. However, those concerns were quickly dispelled, as the group rose to greater heights than ever. Cruz also became a staple at Havana’s famed Tropicana nightclub.
She became particularly known for her performances of guarachas, an uptempo style of Cuban music that was sometimes comic, and sometimes storytelling. Her trademark cry, “¡Azúcar!”, came about during this period as a response to a waiter’s question about sugar in her coffee. She would often bellow this word during her concerts as a sort of calling card.
Celia Cruz spent the rest of the 1950s in this fashion. Her star grew and grew, but she remained entirely a product of Cuba’s music scene, and spread Afro-Cuban music throughout the rest of the Spanish-speaking world in the western hemisphere.
However, Celia Cruz’ life was about to change dramatically and for reasons beyond her control.
Revolution and exile
1959 played host to the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro seized control of the country and installed a new government regime based around Communist ideals.
Now, Celia Cruz had not been against communism until that point. In fact, she’d been denied entry by the United States government on two separate occasions during the 1950s due to concerns about her pro-communist leanings.
However, as Cruz returned to Havana in the wake of the revolution, she observed the turmoil, destruction, and desperation that the new regime embodied. So, she began speaking out, both in speech and song, against the Castro government.
Fidel Castro was not known for his even temperament or commitment to freedom of speech. Celia Cruz knew that her public stance could have dire consequences for her, as she observed other critics of the regime suffer terrible injustices.
So, she and members of La Sonora Matancera left Cuba in 1960, ostensibly for a tour of Mexico. They did not return, and – presumably buoyed by Cruz’ change of heart – gained entry into the United States in 1961.
Celia married the group’s trumpet player, Pedro Knight, and the couple settled in New Jersey. Unsurprisingly, Castro’s government barred Cruz from returning to the country altogether, and refused to allow her to care for her mother during Catalina’s battle with bladder cancer. Cruz lost both of her parents during this period, and was not able to attend either of their final moments or funerals.
Cruz in the US
Celia Cruz was a big star in her native Cuba and in Latin America. However, that stardom did not immediately translate to the populace of the United States. In a sense, she found herself having to start over.
Cruz was a singular talent, though, and it proved impossible to ignore her mastery in the States for very long. She catapulted into the American eye in 1966 when she began collaborating with Tito Puente and his orchestra.
Her flamboyant attire and one-of-a-kind stage presence pushed the entire group to superstardom. She ended up recording four albums with Puente, and added “Bemba colorá” to her repertoire during the period. The guaracha became one of her trademark numbers, and one that she would perform regularly for the rest of her career.
Cruz also recorded several albums with Tico Records. After top salsa record label Fania Records acquired Tico in 1973, Cruz began an association with Fania that would last until the early 90s.
During her time with Fania, she recorded albums with Johnny Pacheco and Willie Colón. Both collaborations were extremely successful, and expanded fandom for Cruz across racial and ethnic divides. She would also take part in a documentary with Colón and Dolores del Río entitled Salsa in 1976, which explored Latin culture and customs.
In 1980, Celia Cruz was a featured performer at the Paris Olympics. Two years later, she received her first tribute concert at Madison Square Garden.
Then, in 1987, she performed a concert at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. This concert was later certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest free-entry outdoor concert ever, as there were a reported 250,000 people who attended the show.
Over the course of her singing career, Cruz recorded more than 75 albums. Of those, 23 of them were certified gold. Part of her enduring success stemmed from her unwavering vocal talents, which remained strong and pure for the many decades of her career.
However, Cruz did not just sing. She also worked as an actress in both English and Spanish-language productions. Notably, she acted alongside Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas in the 1992 movie Mambo Kings.
Celia Cruz performed and recorded all the way into her last year of life. After surviving breast cancer in the summer of 2002, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She underwent surgery to remove it in December 2002, and emerged confident that her career would continue as it had.
Unfortunately, gliomas have a high chance of recurrence. Celia Cruz died on July 16, 2023 at her home in New Jersey due to complications from cancer.
Tributes and salutes to Cruz continue to this day. Even during her lifetime, she was honored in many different ways and locations.
For instance, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987. She also has a park dedicated to her life in her adopted home state of New Jersey and is the namesake of a high school in the Bronx. She had a section of Meridian Avenue in Miami renamed “Celia Cruz Way” in 1991.
She has also been the subject of a musical and a Smithsonian exhibition. In the latter, one of her trademark outfits remains a featured display.
Cruz was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys. Rolling Stone ranked her number 18 on its 2023 list of 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Cruz was a titan of her craft. She made an incredible impact on the accessibility of salsa and Latin music to the broader public, including in the United States. Thus, she was a natural fit for the American Women Quarters Program.
The Celia Cruz quarter was the fourth new quarter released by the US Mint in 2024. It was also the fourteenth coin produced under the umbrella of its program to honor famous American women.
The obverse of the coin features President George Washington. All quarters since 1932 have come with an image of the first president.
Although we weren’t there at the time, it’s likely that the design for Cruz’ tribute on the coin’s reverse was fairly easy to devise. She is portrayed in one of her signature dresses, holding a microphone, and clearly in her element.
Her trademark phrase – ¡Azúcar! – appears alongside her head. It is not