Los Angeles/The United States Mint has put into circulation the 25-cent coin honoring Cuban singer Celia Cruz, the agency reported Thursday. US Embassy in Cubawhich celebrated that the Queen of Salsa is the first Afro-Latin figure to receive this tribute.
The coin dedicated to Cuba’s Guarachera is part of a series called American Women Quarters, which began to be issued in 2022 and will continue until 2025 in order to honor the advances and contributions of women in that country.
The program calls for five of these new coins to be issued each year, and in 2024, in addition to the Celia Cruz coin, coins were minted in honor of the Episcopalian Reverend Pauli Murray, Patsy Takemoto Mink – the first woman of color to be a congresswoman –, the surgeon and women’s rights advocate Mary Edwards Walker, and the political activist and educator Zitkala Sa.
The coin is part of a series called American Women Quarters
When presenting the coin last year, the Mint defines Celia Cruz when presenting the coin as “a Cuban-American singer, cultural icon and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century.”
The obverse of the coin depicts a portrait of George Washington, originally composed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser to commemorate his 200th birthday.
The reverse shows Celia Cruz flashing her dazzling smile in a performance dressed in one of her signature outfits and an inscription to her right reproducing her most famous cry to get people dancing: “Azúcar!”
The singer, who went into exile in the United States in 1961 and was never able to return to Cuba – Fidel Castro did not even allow her to do so to bury her mother – died on July 16, 2003 in New Jersey, after battling a brain tumor. Her remains are buried in New York.
