Once again, Celia Cruz has been censored in Cuba. The National Center of Popular Music decided to cancel a tribute performance by the theater group El Público, scheduled for Sunday, the 17th, at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC).
Since the suspension was briefly reported the Thursday before the event by that state institution, this new episode of censorship has been condemned on social media. Dozens of critical comments can be seen below the Facebook post, which, as has been noted, subtly avoids mentioning the name of the Queen of Salsa, perhaps the most famous Cuban popular artist worldwide over the past six decades and, yet, systematically excluded and silenced within the island.
The tribute by El Público—directed by Carlos Díaz, and on this occasion with texts and musical advice by Norge Espinosa Mendoza—was to take place on Sunday the 17th at 8:30 p.m. in Hall 3 of the busy FAC. Tuesday, the 21st, marks the centenary of the great singer, who emigrated from Cuba in 1960 and became one of the greatest Latino icons in the United States.
Music researcher and critic Rosa Marquetti pointed out that the decision adds “one more chapter to the history of censorship and the application of political commissar methods within Cuban culture.” And she detailed: “Some of those involved in this heartfelt initiative, after days of rehearsals and work, report incidents of personal summons, unappealable orders, and threats anticipating negative consequences for those who dare to disobey.”
“For 60 years they have feared that voice, trembling with fear just from pronouncing or writing her name, terrified of her extraordinary power to convene, knowing full well that her cry of ‘Azúcar!’ and her joy attract and convince much more than the bitterness and karmic negativity with which they impose orders, dole out slaps, and threaten with the only thing they have: the force of de facto power,” wrote the musicologist on Facebook. “For 60 years, they have tried to tarnish—without success—one of the most extraordinary life trajectories in the cultural sphere in defense of an identity, with a sense of belonging that is beyond question.” And further: “For 60 years they have attacked her, overwhelmed her, pouring upon her the misogyny and plantation racism that has characterized many of the decisions and policies in the cultural sphere, while she stood tall in the world as the greatest representation of all things Cuban, the most widely known worldwide, the most beloved, the most applauded, the most honored.”
Marquetti briefly, but sufficiently, reviewed the rich career of Celia Cruz to then, in an eloquent contrast, directly question the current Cuban cultural hierarchy: “Can anyone say what merits, what work they have, what contributions to Cuban culture have been made by Abel Prieto, Alpidio Alonso, Fernando Rojas, Fernando León Jacomino, Indira Fajardo, Víctor Rodríguez ‘Vitico’?”
Meanwhile, the poet and playwright Norge Espinosa indicated on Facebook that the tribute by El Público, “aside from evoking the Guarachera de Cuba through anecdotes from her life and several of her hits, intended nothing more than to underline the undeniable: the enduring relevance of her musical legacy, and the iconic value of that woman who, in Cuba and abroad, represented what is Cuban on a scale that escapes any narrow-minded suspicion and politics.”
“On the eve of her centenary, Celia, who died 22 years ago, remains more alive than many of those who have tried to deny her and erase her from books and discographies,” he emphasized. “Alongside Benny Moré, she holds a place that no one can dispute in the collective imagination or in the endurance of their talents as an essential reference, whether one likes it or not: be it a government official or a new figure from the most recent urban music. And they earned that themselves, two people of African descent from humble origins, through heart, musical genius, and service to their public. The pride of what is Cuban does not fit into a narrow slogan, nor is it diminished by mandate. I grew up without hearing her, because she was not broadcast nor mentioned. Discovering her much later became not only admiration and respect, but also a fundamental key to understanding things that, without her, in the cultural and spiritual history of this country, cannot be explained.”
In another public reflection, the day after the official announcement, as the independent Cuban press has echoed the censorship, while, as usual, there is no trace of news about it in the official media, Juan Carlos Cuba Marchán insisted that “if Celia Cruz embodied anything, it was precisely this: popular Cuban identity in its most authentic and democratic expression. Not institutional Cuban identity, not salon Cuban identity, but the one born in the tenement slums, in neighborhood parties, in Afro-Cuban Santería that permeates every cell of the national identity.”
And he added something obvious to anyone who has been paying attention over the last few decades: “The Guarachera was not a creation of cultural elites or music academies. It was the people who crowned her who recognized in her voice the exact timbre of their own joys and sorrows. Her legacy belongs to that sphere where official culture always arrives late: the transnational popular imagination that connects the Cuban diaspora with the island through codes that no decree can erase. Prohibiting her evocation on stage is not just censoring an artist: it is attempting to amputate a piece of the sensory memory of millions of people for whom ‘La vida es un carnaval’ or ‘Bemba colorá’ are as constitutive of their identity as son or rumba. It is pretending that cultural history stops where political discomfort begins.”
