"Queen of Salsa" Celia Cruz honored by U.S. Mint with special quarter
MIAMI -- She was known as the "Queen of Salsa": An icon who broke barriers with her voice and her music and now more than two decades after her death, Celia Cruz is making history again.
Cruz was chosen as one of five exceptional women celebrated by the U.S. Mint's American Women Quarters program and the first Afro-Latina to be represented.
"In her lifetime she got a lot of awards [and] received a lot of recognitions, but this is the biggest because it's not a music award and that's what she did. She was on the coin forever of U.S. currency," said Omar Pardillo Cid, Cruz's former manager. "It's amazing."
Pardillo Cid, who worked with Celia for years up until she died, said he couldn't be prouder of this honor.
" For somebody who came to this country, probably with a few coins in her pocket and look, and she is now on a U.S. currency now, so I was very honored," he said.
The Queen of Salsa, who passed away in 2003, appears on the tails' side of the quarter dressed in a traditional Cuban dress with her contagious smile and next to her iconic slogan, "Azucar!"
"I had the chance to meet her personally was with her several times," said CBS News Miami's Marybel Rodriguez She was just an amazing woman just that smile contagious that laugh."
"I had a great honor of meeting the persona behind Celia Cruz. She was a great person. Great, sister great wife just a good human being," Pardillo Cid said. "Celia was a great human being."
The coins are already in circulation. On August 24, the Leon Medical Centers will be giving them out at their centers but you must get a voucher and pick a location on their website. .