Celia Cruz Quarter

The 2024 Celia Cruz Quarter is the 14th coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program. Celia Cruz was a Cuban-American singer, cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century.

Celia Cruz was born Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso in Havana, Cuba, on October 21, 1925. She grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Santos Suárez, where she was exposed to diverse musicians and performers who influenced her future singing career.

Cruz was drawn to music from an early age. As a teenager, her aunt and cousin took her to cabarets to perform. She studied voice, theory, and piano at Havana’s National Conservatory of Music.

In the late 1940s, she competed on an amateur radio show contest called “The Tea Hour.” As a result of her growing radio fame, she came to the attention of influential producers and musicians. She was hired as the singer for Las Mulatas Del Fuego, a dance group that traveled throughout Latin America. In 1950, she became the lead female singer for La Sonora Matancera, Cuba’s most popular orchestra. Over the next years with the orchestra, her star continued to rise.

As the Cuban Revolution raged, she made the decision not to return to Cuba. She moved to the U.S. and married Pedro Knight, her longtime friend and trumpet player. She joined the Tito Puente Orchestra, a group central to the new sound developing in the 1960s and ’70s: salsa. Salsa was music born of Cuban and Afro-Latin mixed musical tradition.

In 1974, Cruz joined a new record label, “Fania,” which was devoted solely to the genre. She was the only woman in the Fania All-Stars and one of the few women to succeed in the male-dominated salsa world. She also appeared in several Hollywood movies and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Cruz’s numerous honors and awards include four Latin Grammy awards, a Presidential Medal of Arts, and three Grammy awards, including a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy. She was inducted into Billboard’s Latin Music Hall of Fame and the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.

Celia Cruz died in New Jersey on July 16, 2003. Her songs, performances, and spirit remain international treasures. Cruz’s influence reached well beyond her music. She was a cultural icon, celebrating her Cuban culture, which helped other Afro-Latino Americans embrace their heritage.