Gloria Estefan, who immigrated from Cuba to America as a toddler with her family, wrote a powerful response reflecting on former Cuban president Fidel Castro’s death via Instagram on Saturday, November 26. She shared her message alongside a photo of Cuban exiles fleeing the country on a raft.
“Although the death of a human being is rarely cause for celebration, it is the symbolic death of the destructive ideologies that he espoused that, I believe, is filling the Cuban exile community with renewed hope and a relief that has been long in coming,” the “Conga” singer, 59, wrote. “And although the grip of Castro’s regime will not loosen overnight, the demise of a leader that oversaw the annihilation of those with an opposing view, the indiscriminate jailing of innocents, the separation of families, the censure of his people’s freedom to speak, state sanctioned terrorism and the economic destruction of a once thriving & successful country, can only lead to positive change for the Cuban people and our world.”
“May freedom continue to ring in the United States, my beautiful adopted country, and may the hope for freedom be inspired and renewed in the heart of every Cuban in my homeland and throughout the world,” she concluded the post, alongside Cuban and American flag emojis.
Estefan, who was born in Havana, fled Cuba more than 50 years ago after Castro rose to power. Her father, José Fajardo, was a Cuban soldier who later fought in the Vietnam War with the United States military after his family fled to Miami. Estefan became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1974.
Earlier this year, the four-time Grammy winner said in a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame video that she won’t perform concerts in her native country. “I can’t get on a stage with millions of Cubans in front of me and not say something,” she explained. “It’s very tough for me, and my father sacrificed a lot, and I really, I can’t do it, personally.”
Several other Cuban American entertainers took to social media after news broke of Castro’s death late Friday, November 25. Fifth Harmony singer Camila Cabello, who was born in Cuba, tweeted: “I want nothing more than to see the families that were divided to come together again and for all the years of pain to come to an end.”
Her bandmate Lauren Jauregui, whose parents are Cuban, shared an Instagram photo of an anti-Castro celebration that broke out in Miami earlier on Saturday, writing, “The cockroach died. #FreeCuba What happiness! I know that my grandmothers are dancing together in a party in heaven where [late Cuban singer] Celia Cruz is singing songs about liberty and freedom.”
