by Mildred Europa Taylor
Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz will be featured on the U.S. quarter, making her the first Afro Latina to appear on the coin. The “Queen of Salsa” is one of the new faces of women who will be on the 2024 coins as part of the American Women Quarters program.
The program which started in 2022 honors the achievements of American women. The other honorees for 2024 are civil rights activist Pauli Murray; Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress; Zitkala-Ša, an activist from the Yankton Sioux Nation; and Civil War surgeon and abolitionist Dr. Mary Edwards Walker.
“All of the women being honored have lived remarkable and multi-faceted lives, and have made a significant impact on our Nation in their own unique way,” Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson in a statement.
Mario Ruiz/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images
“The women pioneered change during their lifetimes, not yielding to the status quo imparted during their lives. By honoring these pioneering women, the Mint continues to connect America through coins which are like small works of art in your pocket.”
The designs for the quarters will be released in mid-2023. Cruz is being honored after building a legacy through career achievements. Here are three of her accomplishments.
She studied to become a literature teacher
Born Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso in Santos Suárez in Havana in 1925, Cruz grew up with an extended family of 14 children and her father and mother who were middle-class Cubans and very strict Catholics. Her passion for music and singing was identified at an early age by an aunt who loved to take her out to music concerts every now and then. While in school, Cruz usually spent a lot of time at a neighbor’s home listening to music and learning Santería music from an Afro-American religion of Yoruba origin that developed in Cuba among West Africa. At the time, being an entertainer was not a profession parents dreamt of for their children, especially women. Being strict Catholics, her father wanted her to become a trained teacher. Cruz furthered her education and attended a teacher training school in Havana to become a literature teacher but upon advice from a teacher, she attended Havana’s National Conservatory of Music after graduating from teacher training school.
She joined a music band and even became bigger than the band
It was Cruz’s intention to become a literature teacher but while in school, she began to sing at Radio García-Serra, one of Cuba’s leading stations, and won first prize in a singing contest in 1947. In 1950, she was invited to audition for the lead singer role with one of Cuba’s biggest music groups Sonora Matancera and got the role. From this point onwards her music career grew bigger. By 1960, Cruz became a Caribbean sensation. Becoming more popular than the band she joined, she did solo gigs and continued to play with the band touring the Caribbean and parts of America and Europe.
She became the Queen of Salsa and a symbol of artistic freedom for Cuban American exiles
In 1961, while on tour in the U.S, she was banned from entering Cuba after she refused to enter the country following Castro’s takeover. Even after the death of her mother in 1962, she was still denied entry into the country by the government.
Cruz spent the rest of her career in the USA becoming an even bigger sensation and being crowned the Queen of Salsa and the Queen of Latin American Music. She won three Grammy Awards and four Latin Grammys for recordings including Ritmo en el corazón and Siempre viviré. She also featured in over 10 films, received a star on the “Walk of Fame” in Hollywood, and in 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts. Becoming a symbol of artistic freedom for Cuban American exiles, Cruz died of brain cancer at age 77 in the U.S. She was buried in a granite mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
She has been honored with several posthumous awards and several schools have been built in her honor in both Cuba and the U.S.