Free Republic

As I write this column, a bit of harmless, racist, fluff is transpiring on the TV screen: The Hispanic Day Parade. A celebration of Latin "pride." The hosts are alleged journalists Jim Watkins, who is white, and Lolita Lopez, who is Hispanic, with Hispanic reporter Matt Garcia working the street (the announcers note that reporter Marysol Castro, who worked with Garcia in 2002, is on vacation in Costa Rica, or she’d be there, too). The parade this year was dedicated to the memory of Latin singer, Celia Cruz, who died on July 16 at the age of "around 79." Lolita...

Out and about yesterday, I ran into Celia Cruz's funeral, at St. Patrick's Cathedral. A great throng was there, of Cubans and Cuban-Americans paying their last respects to "the Queen of Salsa." My, how they loved her. She was a marvelous singer, a great entertainer, full of joy and love. It was hard to be around her — or hear her voice — and not be happy. She was a kind of ambassadress of Cuban music, taking it all around the world. Of course, there was a political side to her, too. The Left always had trouble with her. You...

When Ms. Cruz defected from Cuba in 1960, her songs were banned in her home country, though in recent years Cuban aficionados could listen to her hits by tuning into Miami radio stations. At first, the sensation who left behind stardom in Cuba and sought liberty in the United States had no easy time; her efforts for the next decade stumbled. But like so many immigrants seeking the American dream, she eventually made it: That clear, operatic voice could not be denied. Hers was a talent that reached far beyond her own culture. In concert, she charmed audiences throughout Latin...

HAVANA - While the death of salsa singer Celia Cruz was reported prominently in newspapers across the world, the news got scant and somewhat bitter treatment in official media in her homeland Thursday. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported her death in a tiny, two-paragraph story low on page 6 of Thursday's eight-page edition. Cruz, also known as the "Queen of Salsa," died Wednesday from a brain tumor in her home at Fort Lee, New Jersey, just outside New York. She was 77. Granma acknowledged Cruz as an "important Cuban performer who popularized our country's music in the United...

Celia Cruz, the grande dame of Cuban music, the woman whose unmistakable voice resonated of the rhythm-rich island itself, died Wednesday after a seven-month battle with brain cancer.Cruz died at 5 p.m. at her home in Fort Lee, N.J. She was 77, her husband said -- or 78, according to most biographers.To Cubans on this side of the Florida Straits, her death is much more than the silencing of one of their homeland's greatest musical figures. Celia was the very embodiment of a fabled, nostalgia-hued Cuba, an icon in nine-inch heels and sky-high wigs whose heart always beat to the...

Rest in peace Celia, nos vemos en una Cuba libre.