Silenced, vilified, and censored in her own country, Celia Cruz remains, a hundred years after her birth, one of the freest and most powerful voices in Cuban history.
In this centenary, her legacy has proven to be more alive than ever, just like her strong stance against the dictatorship and in defense of political prisoners.
The United States Embassy in Havana recalled this Tuesday on X an iconic quote from the Queen of Salsa: “Political prisoners are heroes. They are the ones who truly fight for a free Cuba.”
Additionally, the publication included a tribute video with a powerful message: "Today we join countless proud Cubans in honoring the life and legacy of Celia Cruz on what would have been her hundredth birthday."
However, this was not the only remark that the great artist directed against the Cuban regime.
According to the Center for a Free Cuba, Celia Cruz has always demonstrated an irreconcilable difference with Fidel Castro and the regime.
In 1959, when Fidel Castro wanted to meet her during a reception in Havana, she dignifiedly refused: “If he wants to see me, let him come,” she said.
From that moment on, Celia Cruz sealed her fate: that of a free artist condemned to exile for refusing to bow to power.
In 1960, she left the Island and never returned while under the dictatorship. Not even when her mother was dying was she allowed to go back to say goodbye, an event that marked the singer for her entire life.
The regime closed the doors of his homeland to him, but his voice crossed all the seas.
From exile, Celia spoke without fear. In multiple interviews, she reiterated her rejection of the system that exiled her. “As long as Cuba is under that dictatorship, I cannot return. My heart is there, but not my body,” she declared in a conversation with Univisión.
In 2002, in statements to El País, he was equally emphatic: “I cannot go to Cuba, not while that dictatorship exists. When Cuba is free, then I will go. As long as there is no freedom, as long as those who hold different opinions are imprisoned, I cannot and do not want to go.”
In every word, Celia defended the right to freedom of thought, a value for which dozens of artists and activists on the Island continue to pay with imprisonment today.
His most repeated phrase, “Political prisoners are heroes. They are the ones who truly fight for a free Cuba”, has become a cry of resistance that transcends generations.
The artist also denounced the silence and cultural censorship that the regime has imposed on her work. “I do not want to go to a country where I cannot speak as I am speaking to you right now,” she said in an interview in Spain.
And he added with irony and courage: “Let me put it nicely: may the cancer that afflicts that country disappear.”
Through her music, Celia Cruz expressed the nostalgia of exile and her love for Cuba.
In her song La Cuba mía, she confessed: “The Cuba I dreamed of is not the one I am seeing,” and proclaimed her desire for unity: “My Cuba must belong to all who love her.”
In Canto a La Habana, his promise was etched forever: “Havana, when you are free, I will return singing.”
Celia was more than an interpreter: she was an ambassador of free Cuban culture.
Sugar, her immortal cry, was her way of asserting that joy and identity can survive even in exile.
While the Castro regime attempted to erase his name from the media, his music became a symbol of pride and resistance around the world.
A century after her birth, the Queen of Salsa is honored in various cities around the world.
Within Cuba, however, her name remains taboo. According to a report by the Center for a Free Cuba, a tribute prepared by the theater group El Público at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano was canceled by the cultural authorities, which critics view as yet another indication of the regime's fear of her legacy.
But neither censorship nor time has managed to silence her voice. Celia Cruz lives on in her music, in her words, and in the memories of a people who have never stopped loving her.
As she herself once said: “The Cuba I knew no longer exists. Cuba lives in my heart, not in that dictatorship.”
And so, a hundred years later, her voice returns to say what many remain silent about: political prisoners are heroes, and Cuba will only be free when its art, its music, and its people are free as well.
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