The late “Queen of Salsa,” Celia Cruz, will be the first Afro-Latina featured on the United States quarter.
This week, the U.S. Mint announced that Cruz is among several women who will have their faces on the newest coins. Cruz remains one of the most successful Latin artists to date, accumulating three Grammy Awards, four Latin Grammy Awards, and the President’s National Medal of Arts. During her illustrious career, she recorded seventy-five records, twenty-three of which went gold and racked up accolades. The Cuban-born singer was widely known for salsa but also thrived in reggaeton and rumba. Her trademark shout, “¡Azúcar!” was used as an exclamation in her records and during performances as a way to remember enslaved Africans who were forced to labor on Cuban sugar plantations. Sadly, Cruz passed away in 2003 from a brain tumor at age 78. She was honored with a Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2016.
The American Women Quarters Program was launched in 2022 to pay homage to those who lent their lives to helping others. The initiative will run through 2025, issuing five quarters a year with the faces of these heroes. Other women who will be honored are Patsy Takemoto Mink, the Hawaiian-born first woman of color elected to Congress, Civil-war era surgeon and abolitionist Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Civil rights advocate Pauli Murray and Native American activist Zitkala-Ša. These women were chosen to be on the quarters due to their “significant impact” on the country.
The quarter designs will be unveiled in mid-2023.
