Celia Cruz

The outpouring in the streets of New York — and elsewhere — at the death of Celia Cruz last week invites reflection. Throughout the past week, fans of all ages and creeds took to the streets of Miami and New York to show their love for the woman known as "the Queen of Salsa." She had an infectious personality. Dancing on stage, belting out her trademark phrase of azucar, or "sugar" in Spanish, it was impossible not to like, if not love, Celia Cruz.

Celia was not an outspoken political advocate, and we do not try to portray her as a self-made martyr against Castro's communist dictatorship. Yet like all Cubans, she suffered because of his regime. After she left Cuba in 1960 to make it big in America, Castro forbade Celia from visiting her dying mother or to attend her burial. Save one concert at Guantanamo Bay in 1990, she was never allowed to visit Cuba, having been made a de facto enemy of her homeland by Castro. Throughout her life, pained as she was in witnessing the oppression under which her people had and continue to suffer, Celia displayed a quiet fortitude, a mature resilience in the face of oppression.

Celia lived the American dream. She grew up in the poor Havana neighborhood of Santo Suarez, singing in competitions to bring back food for her family. Immediately following the Cuban revolution, via which Fidel Castro seized power, she fled to America. Like so many of her people and millions of others who have reached the shores of this nation, she prospered.

It was clear, in watching the events of the past week, that Celia was more to the Cuban exile community than mere colorful costumes and towering wigs. In the words of Jesus Gonzalez, who left the island in 1970,she symbolized "a ray of hope, an expression of freedom" to Cuban-Americans. Celia was a remnant of an old Cuba, yet at the same time, an icon of Cuba's future.

The Miami Herald obituary quotes Celia as saying, "I adore my country. I miss it terribly. But New Jersey is home now. It may not look like Santos Suárez, but then, Santos Suárez doesn't look like Santos Suárez. It's turned to dirt." But a common refrain sounded by Cuban-Americans over the past week was that Celia's one dream was to return to a free Cuba. "The only thing she wanted before she died was to see her country free. It's too bad she didn't see it, but I know she will pray for us," said Hilda Cruz, a Cuban-American who attended yesterday's funeral procession. There was a sense at her passing that she sustained the hope that one day, all Cubans will be able to taste the azucar of freedom.