Cruz was known as The Queen of Salsa and is one of the 20th century’s most celebrated Latin music artists.
The late Cuban American singer Celia Cruz, known as The Queen of Salsa, will be the first Afro Latina to appear on the U.S. quarter.
Cruz is one of the 20th century’s most celebrated Latin music artists. She recorded over 80 albums and gained world-wide fame. During her lifetime she was recognized with 23 gold albums, three Grammy Awards, four Latin Grammy Awards, and the President’s National Medal of Arts, according to the Smithsonian. She was also honored with a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Grammys.
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1925, Cruz began singing in the 1940s. Following the 1959 Cuban revolution, she exiled in the United States after a performance tour in Mexico. Although salsa was a genre dominated by male artists, Cruz became a celebrated star and helped increase the popularity of salsa and Latin music in general.
Cruz and four other women were selected by the United States Mint as the 2024 honorees for the American Women Quarters Program.
The other women are Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress; Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War era surgeon, women’s rights advocate and an abolitionist; Pauli Murray, a poet, writer, activist, lawyer and Episcopal priest; Zitkala-Ša, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, a writer, composer, educator and political activist for Native Americans’ right to United States citizenship and other civil rights.
The Mint is issuing five quarters each year from 2022 to 2025 to honor “ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse individuals.” The women come from a diverse field that includes suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space and the arts.
“All of the women being honored have lived remarkable and multi-faceted lives, and have made a significant impact on our Nation in their own unique way,” said Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson in a press release. “The women pioneered change during their lifetimes, not yielding to the status quo imparted during their lives. By honoring these pioneering women, the Mint continues to connect America through coins which are like small works of art in your pocket.”
The designs for the 2024 American Women Quarters will be released in mid-2023.