Salsa legend Celia Cruz’s legacy continues with “¡Azúcar!” on the quarter

Celia Cruz, known as the Queen of Salsa, is remembered for her resounding energy and her desire to bring joy through music. Hundreds of people celebrated her legacy late last month at the National Museum of American History to commemorate the 2024 Celia Cruz Quarter from the United States Mint. 

“[Cruz would say,] ‘When people hear me sing, I want them to be happy, happy, happy. I don’t want them thinking about when there’s no money or when there’s fighting at home. My message is always happiness,’” says Anamaria Artemisa Sayre, co-host of NPR Alt Latino, to the crowd assembled on Sept. 20 in the museum’s Performance Plaza.

As a Cuban-American immigrant, Cruz’s story is all the more inspiring, considering the barriers she faced before her death in 2003 at the age of 77.

“You didn’t have to tell her that she was a Black woman,” says Ariana Curtis, guest curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “I consider this a part of her quiet resistance to the status quo at the time. She was a woman in a male-dominated field, she was a Black woman in a Latinidad that says that there aren’t Black people and [did all this on] a global stage.”

Curtis, who told the crowd that she was responsible for pushing the U.S. Mint to put Celia Cruz on the quarter, went on to say that Cruz’s style was unapologetically Black. Her music, said Curtis, transcended borders and reached audiences beyond language barriers.

“I wanted the U.S. Mint to understand that her legacy and her impact is far beyond just Afro Latinidad or Latinidad period,” says Curtis. “You have people who do not speak Spanish — who did not grow up in the Americas — making tribute albums to Celia Cruz.”

The U.S. Mint is the government entity that manufactures and distributes coins. Through these coins, the Mint tells parts of the country’s story, signifying change through representation. The Celia Cruz quarter is one of 15 commemorative coins created to date in the Mint’s American Women Quarters Program, according to its website. Cruz was chosen for recognition among other prominent women including Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress, and Zitkala-Ša, a writer, composer, educator and political activist.

Hola Cultura first reported this story in the summer of 2023, when the design of the new coin by artist Phebe Hemphill was first unveiled to the public. According to the Mint, the new Celia Cruz quarter finally entered the U.S. money supply on August 9, 2024.

The evening began with a powerful speech by Betty Birdsong, a special advisor to the Mint.

“As a Black woman, I know what it’s like to live surrounded by prejudices and stereotypes. It’s hard to be noticed or heard in a world that’s deaf to people who are from a different status. For centuries, inequalities and injustices have suppressed many voices … but not Celia’s,” says Birdsong to the crowd, speaking beside a large cutout of Celia Cruz’s quarter, which was propped up on the stage facing the audience. It depicts the singer wearing a Bata Cubana dress with a microphone in her hand, an open gesture and a huge smile.

Birdsong then awarded Cruz’s nieces, Celia Cody and Linda Pritchett, with a shadow box displaying Cruz’s image and two Celia Cruz quarters, one from each of the U.S. Mint’s production facilities.

Sayre, who moderated a panel discussion with Cruz’s nieces and Smithsonian curators, described the late singer’s musical technicality as vocally unmistakable and very adaptable.  

For Cruz’s family, meanwhile, there was never a dull moment with Cruz as their aunt, Pritchett confided, adding that the family-oriented singer insisted that her family always maintain their connection to Cuba.

“She came to all my kid’s birthday parties,” says Pritchett. “She was at all our birthday parties; she made a big deal of our family because we were a remnant [of our extended family back home on the Caribbean island]. She kept a piece of Cuba in her heart that she shared and displayed with everyone in her music.”

Panelist Frances Aparicio, a guest curator for the National Museum of the American Latino, describes the times in which Cruz made a name for herself as explosively rich in music and politics.

“In the late 60’s and during the 70’s, we had the Nuyorican movement. We had the Black arts movement. Black and Puertorican youth were collaborating in all kinds of radical militant activity,” shares Aparicio. She believes Cruz came into the industry with a mission “to bring back Cuban music” and remind Latino youth of their roots.

Pritchett also responded to critics, who questioned her aunt’s Americaness after the Mint’s decision to elevate the salsa icon led to online comments challenging her identity.

“When my aunt was naturalized and became officially American… she screamed ‘America!’ It was a cry that said ‘I just became American,’” says Pritchett. “[You have to understand that] being American was such a big deal because she was rejected by the government of her native land. So to be rejected and, to and extent, exiled and then to be received in this country, the greatest country on the planet… She was proud to be American.”

“Her Americaness was not just U.S. based,” adds Aparicio. “It was also very hemispheric. [Cruz] touched the lives and hearts of everyone in the hemisphere, in the Americas.”

Toward the end of Cruz’s life, her family worried about whether her legacy would continue. But after her death in 2003, more than two decades ago, they were gratified to see that her fans never let her die.

“Celia siempre va vivir!” exclaims Pritchett.

After the panel, attendees indulged in festivities simultaneously underway throughout the museum, capping the evening of celebration with music, dancing and learning. The audience participated in salsa lessons with local dance teacher Noelia Garcia, practicing moves many later used during the event’s finale, which featured Lulada Club, an all-women salsa orchestra based in New York. 

Audience members also toured the exhibition “¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States” in the museum’s Molina Latino Family Gallery, which aims to educate visitors about the many ways that Latin Americans are foundational to American history, culture and society. 

After the tour, people headed to the collections in an exhibition called “Out of Storage,” which displayed several colorful dresses and a pair of red, one-of-a-kind high heels that Cruz once wore on stage. The exhibit displayed both a 3D-rendered version of her red heels and the authentic pair originally created by Cruz’s personal shoemaker in Mexico, Miguel Nieto.

Cruz’s family sat alongside these items. We asked Pritchett what this moment means to her and what she thinks it means for society at large.

“[Cruz] paved the way for my sister and I. We never felt that we could not do something because of the way we looked. And wouldn’t it be great if everyone had that?” says Pritchett, pointing out that today there is a Celia Cruz Barbie and children’s books about her music. “And now she is on the quarter.”

“I think it gives us pride in ourselves,” says audience member Janina Green, 42. “I’m Puerto Rican, and my grandmother was mixed and on the darker side, and even in Puerto Rico, colorism is prevalent. So having someone like Celia, who was loved and respected by everyone, means a lot. They didn’t care about her color — they just loved her music.”

“America has a blind spot where they think Anglo-Americans started in America. But this country was also built by African Americans and Latin Americans, and they should be represented just like everyone else,” adds Green.

Maria, another audience member, who only gave us her first name out of privacy concerns, also relates to Cruz’s experience as an American.

“Growing up in Brooklyn, everyone was listening to Celia,” says Maria. “I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m not Latina, but I have a mixed heritage, and like her, I’m an immigrant. Celia being on the quarter shows all of us that whether or not you are born here, you are a part of the American story. So any history — whether it’s Black history, Hispanic history or Asian history — is all American history.”

“It’s her story, your story, our story,” adds Maria. “It is very important that we remember that.”

– Story by Mariana Benitez Arreola and Olivia Olson

– Copy edited by Matthew Macgugan and Michelle Benitez