Celia Cruz on the U.S. Quarter
Last year on August 12, 2024 the U.S. Mint began to circulate her image on the U.S. quarter. under the American Women Quarters Program. One hundred years after her birth she remains a cultural icon, but her legacy is contested by some, and misrepresented by others.
When she passed due to a long illness in 2003, the mourning for Celia was nearly universal, except in her homeland Cuba where the official media printed a small note on her passing. It recognized Celia as an “important Cuban performer who popularized our country’s music in the United States,” it went on to say that “during the last four decades, she was systematically active in campaigns against the Cuban revolution generated in the United States.”
A U.S. institution is failing to remember her entire legacy.
Unfortunately, the Smithsonian Institution’s March 5, 2020 video titled “Why Is Celia Cruz Called the Queen of Salsa? #BecauseOfHerStory” does not explain the Castro regime’s hostility toward Celia Cruz.
The Smithsonian failed to mention her refusal to bow to Fidel Castro, her legacy defending freedom of expression, or the high price she paid.
Ariana A. Curtis, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, is interviewed by a student identified as Mincy, who conflates Celia’s history with the immigration experience in America. Celia was a Cuban exile barred from returning to her homeland by the Castro dictatorship, and her music is still banned in Cuba today. This is the misleading portion of the interview that describes her departure from Cuba:
“Ariana A. Curtis: Because especially during the early 1960s when she left, that was right after the Cuban Revolution, you know. And so Cuba was in the news a lot about politics, and about socialism, and about military things. But she really wanted to be able to show this “other side” of Cuba, right. The arts and culture side. And so she definitely used her style, sort of like satin dresses with the ruffles, and like these long trains.
Mincy: People migrate here and they tend to change their names and change who they are so that they can get jobs or so that they can get opportunities. So they hide that part of themselves in order to like grow in this country, it’s so important that we have an example that Celia Cruz did not hide herself.”
Setting the record straight
This omits much of Celia’s past and could be interpreted as an Orwellian rewriting that the Castro government would embrace because it accomplishes something the Queen of Salsa never did: it conceals who she truly was. And this process had been ongoing for several years prior to this interview. This is concerning since the Smithsonian Institution is funded by American taxpayers and should not be producing such bad content to advance a false narrative.
Celia decided to live and perform in freedom, which meant leaving Cuba during the Castro dictatorship. Fidel Castro attempted to force the salsa singer to pay him homage, but she refused. Salserísimo Perú, a Youtube site founded by three Peruvian journalists to disseminate knowledge on salsa and tropical music, provides a more comprehensive and accurate history than the Smithsonian Institution. The following is an account of Celia Cruz’s first “encounter” with Fidel Castro.
“In the early months of 1959, Celia Cruz was hired to sing with a pianist at the house of the Cuban businessman Miguel Angel Quevedo. Quevedo owned the magazine Bohemia, the most influential in Cuba and who had supported the revolution in the last few years. The guerrilla movement with a certain Fidel Castro in front proclaimed in Santiago the beginning of the revolution. At that moment Celia enjoyed great popularity for “Yebero Moderno”, “Tu voz” and “Burundanga” songs she had recorded with the Sonora Matancera. As a guest artist of Rogelio Martinez’s group the Guarachera (Celia) was free to accept other contracts as a soloist. This allowed her to show her talent on different radio stations in Havana, and perform in Mexico, Venezuela, and Peru. Since the regime of Fidel took power, it had begun to systematically seize businesses, radio and television stations. [Fidel Castro speaking: ‘The revolution was something like a hope and that joy, possibly, prevented us from thinking all that we still had to do.’ For the Guarechera, Fidel was ending free expression and the arts in her country. The night of the show in the home of Quevedo, Celia was singing standing next to the pianist, when suddenly the guests started to run to the front door of the house. Fidel Castro had arrived. Neither she nor the pianist moved and continued singing. Suddenly, Quevedo approached Celia and told her that Fidel wanted to meet her because in his guerrilla days, when he cleaned his rifle he was listening to Burundanga. Celia replied that she had been hired to sing next to the piano, and that was her place. If Fidel wanted to meet her, he would have to come to her. But the commandant did not do that.”
Castro barred Celia Cruz from visiting her dying mother
Since Celia Cruz refused to bow to the new dictator, and wanted to continue to live the life of a free artist, she had to leave Cuba on July 15, 1960. However, when her mom was ill she tried to return to see her in 1962, but was barred from entering the country by Fidel Castro. When her mother died Celia was again blocked by the dictatorship from attending her funeral. Because she was not an active supporter of the regime, her music was banned in Cuba.
Music still banned in Cuba today
Regime apologists and their agents of influence have attempted to pretend that things have changed with regards to artistic freedom.
On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that Cuba’s ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and on August 10 the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news. The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio.
There was only one problem. It was not true. Diario de Cuba reported on August 21, 2012 that Tony Pinelli, a well known musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail clearly stated: “All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio ”
Celia is in good company. Other major Cuban artists who have had their music banned by the Castro regime are Olga Guillot, Rolando Lecuona, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Israel Cachao López, Ramón “Mongo” Santamaría, Mario Bauza, Arsenio Rodríguez, Willy Chirino, and Gloria Estefan.
Cuban cultural genocide
According to the 2004 book Shoot the Singer!: Music Censorship Today edited by Marie Korpe, there is growing concern that post-revolution generations in Cuba are growing up without knowing or hearing censored musicians such as Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot, and the long list above. This could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations. This approach has been referred to as a Cuban cultural genocide, denying generations of Cubans their history.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture should provide the complete story of Celia Cruz, rather than the politically correct version currently presented on YouTube. Meanwhile, supporters of freedom and beautiful music may commemorate her entire life and legacy through her music, and speaking up for jailed Cuban artists today, who like Celia spoke out for freedom, such as prisoners of conscience Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Pérez and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.
Celia Cruz Centennial Celebration to Light Up Central Park with Cuban All-Star Lineup
Cuban All-Stars to Celebrate Celia Cruz’s 100th Birthday
In honor of the legendary Celia Cruz’s birth in 1925, a star-studded lineup of Cuban artists will come together on Saturday (Aug. 9) at Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park for a free evening of music, dance, and cultural celebration. In association with Telemundo 47, salsa performer Issac Delgado, Grammy-winning artist Aymee Nuviola, percussion powerhouse Brenda Navarrete, and Afro-Cuban jazz singer Melvis Santa will headline this tribute that celebrates the Queen of Salsa. Fans can also warm up with a free salsa class at 7:00 pm EST, courtesy of Talia Productions dancers.
Capital Research Center, August 13, 2025
InfluenceWatch
Fidel Castro’s 99th birthday and those who celebrate
By Ken Braun
He died in 2016, leaving many detractors, prisons full of political prisoners and . . . some deluded fans.
Today would be the 99th birthday of Cuban communist dictator and revolutionary Fidel Castro. He died in 2016, leaving many detractors, prisons full of political prisoners and . . . some deluded fans.
Justin Trudeau, then the Canadian prime minister, offered a conspicuously warm eulogy:
I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.
On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.
Since 1969, more than 10,000 similarly obtuse Americans have shown their solidarity with Cuban communism by joining the Venceremos Brigade.
According to the InfluenceWatch profile:
The Venceremos Brigade is a radical-left activist group that organizes trips to communist-ruled Cuba as a way for sympathetic Americans to demonstrate their solidarity with the country’s government and their opposition to related United States government policies. As of 2024, it is a fiscally-sponsored project of The People’s Forum, a charitable nonprofit, and was formerly a project of the Alliance for Global Justice. The word “Venceremos” translates as “we shall overcome,” and Venceremos Brigade participants are commonly referred to as brigadistas.
Founded in 1969 by members of the radical New Left activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the original objective of the Venceremos Brigade was to help Cuba produce 10 million tons of sugar during the 1970 harvest, though this goal was ultimately not achieved.
And by “not achieved” it meant:
The 1970 Cuban harvest failed to produce 10 million tons of sugar. A U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) memorandum reported that it had yielded 8.5 million metric tons, which was an all-time record for the country but still 1.5 million tons short of the government’s publicized goal. The report noted that the additional resources which had been diverted to assist with the harvest had negatively impacted other sectors of the Cuban economy—such as construction and manufacturing—and speculated that the increased sugar yields would probably strike “many Cubans as a hollow victory, without benefit to the population.”
According to a 1974 article in the New York Times, over-saturation of the global sugar market depressed prices to such an extent that the 1970 Cuban harvest was one of the least-profitable in the country’s history up to that point. The extra manpower and other resources devoted to the harvest had resulted in a 25 percent drop in milk production and a 38 percent drop in steel production, among other negative economic impacts. The article concluded that “however one looked at it,” the effort had been a “disaster.” Nevertheless, some prominent brigadistas criticized what they called “the predictable American habit of defining ‘success’ in terms of quantity,” and argued that the harvest had not been a “qualitative” failure because of the “degree of commitment, revolutionary consciousness and energy to work” that the effort had demonstrated.
But yesterday’s revolutionary communists have a way of turning into today’s regime politicians and leaders of lefty advocacy nonprofits:
Numerous prominent left-wing academics, activists, and political figures have been affiliated with the Venceremos Brigade, including Los Angeles Mayor and former U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), prominent labor union official and Clinton administration appointee Karen Nussbaum, former Spelman College and Bennett College president Johnnetta Cole, Georgetown University professor and former Dissent magazine co-editor Michael Kazin, former Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner, Pueblo Action Alliance director Julia Bernal, and former member of the domestic terrorist group May 19th Communist Organization and Thousand Currents board member Susan Rosenberg.
Ramparts, the flagship New Left publication of the late 1960s and early 1970s, also featured a hilarious report from a brigadista who could not distinguish between press freedom and propaganda.
According to the InfluenceWatch profile of Ramparts:
“A Letter from Camp Venceremos,” posted in the August 1970 Ramparts, provided another positive portrayal of the Cuban dictatorship. The author, Chris Camarano, was a member of the first Venceremos Brigade [. . .] Camarano wrote this of her impressions of Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro:
Fidel is totally fantastic—completely overwhelming. He is direct, candid, immediate, humble, brilliant, audacious. Some of us were able to have an informal rap with him and he told us wonderful stories about the fighting in the Sierra Maestra. Lots of funny incidents came rushing out. Jesus, he was so lit up—could have gone on for hours, I’m sure.
She also wrote that the Cuban press was superior to the American media:
The news reports here show even Movement news service in the States to be truly for shit. There are zillions of important things happening all over the world every day that are never mentioned in our press—especially Latin American and Far Eastern news. Of course we all knew this before-but even the most skeptical of us never understood the degree to which everything is sifted, selected, distorted.
The reports here are fantastic—extensive, detailed coverage of even the smallest events in all countries. Radio broadcasts last for hours and offer not only good reportage but a lot of analysis. As a result, the general level of political consciousness here is something not to be believed.
In addition to Venceremos Brigade and Ramparts, other InfluenceWatch profiles touching on the Castro regime and Americans sympathetic to it include those for the Weather Underground, Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers Guild, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Imagine what Cuba would be like today if Fidel Castro was never born.
Totalitarians and aspiring totalitarians today celebrate the birth of Fidel Castro over social media, but others try to imagine what state Cuba would be in now if it weren’t for him.
What if Fidel Castro had never been born and his 66-year tyranny had never existed? Let us compare where Cuba was before 1959 to where it is now and speculate on “what might have been.”
The economy
In 1959, in terms of per-capita GDP, Cuba was second to Chile and was doing better than Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. In 2015, Cuba lagged well behind the other four countries. It would be fair to say that in economic terms, despite billions in Soviet and Venezuelan subsidies, the past six decades have been a disaster for Cuba.
Cuban death toll
Healthcare
On November 29, 2018 The New York Times reported that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO) “made about $75 million off the work of up to 10,000 Cuban doctors who earned substandard wages in Brazil.” A group of these Cuban medical doctors are now suing PAHO for the organization’s alleged role in human trafficking.
This may also raise new questions on the relationship between PAHO, Cuba and reporting not only on outbreaks but the healthcare statistics that present the regime in a positive light.