With an ever-present past, in which she and her family came to the U.S. in exile from Cuba in search of a better future, Gloria Estefan recently starred in Madrid’s Hispanic Heritage Day celebrations with a concert in which, in the face of political messages, she defended “what immigrants bring to the world”.
“I have been in the United States for more than six decades and, every time there is an election, they tend to look for the one who is going to pay the price, and it is always the last (immigrant) who arrived in the country. It is easy to raise fear and hatred and now, with the networks, much more,” he said in an interview with EFE on Wednesday.
The singer recalls that crime statistics in her host country also show that migration does not lead to more crime: “We simply want love and respect, we want to be able to provide for our families, and sometimes in certain countries it becomes impossible,” she insists, adding: “We are all human beings first, no matter where we come from, and that will always be my way of thinking.
Her performance in Madrid was controversial from the start because of the amount that was paid, about half a million euros (about 580,000 dollars), a debate that, the artist admits, has continued in networks. “I always get caught for the trajín somehow, and I understand how these things are,” he comments first with derision.
“It makes me laugh, because I’ve reduced a lot what I charge, because I’m not on tour. For me, putting on a show like this means rehearsals, paying the musicians and the crew, and there are more than thirty or so of us traveling. And I wanted to be part of it,” he explains.
He adds that he “loved” the slogan that ‘In Madrid all accents fit’, and wanted to take the opportunity to “resume” his relationship with the Spanish public, precisely now that he has just released his first album entirely in his mother tongue, in spirit and letter, within 18 years, ‘Raíces’.
Gloria Estefan: Pride in Spanish
Precisely the fact that this is so has turned it into a manifesto on his part against the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration to curb the use of Spanish in the US.
“For Emilio (her husband) and for me, it is essential at this time to celebrate our language,” she says. “It is important that we raise our voices and that we don’t let it scare us,” she insists.
He points to “scientific evidence” that listening to several languages boosts children’s cognitive development, and “in most countries more than one language and English is spoken, even in Japan” and other places where it is not official.
“(In my career) it was important to sing in both languages. Someone always tells you: ‘No, that’s not going to work’, but there is no more motivating word for Emilio and for me than the word ‘no’,” he says with a laugh as he recalls how he overcame resistance: “My public has let me evolve, although we have fought very hard for that”.
He recalls how in his time, as a member of the Miami Sound Machine and the great success of ‘Conga’, “the company wanted another ten ‘congas’ more”, but they broke away with ‘Bad Boy’, and it also “hit”. And years later, as a solo artist and in his moment of greatest fame in English, the company threw their hands up in the air with the album ‘Mi tierra’ (1993).
“They told us that it wasn’t going to work and we responded that it didn’t matter, but that for us culturally it was essential to do it at that time, and it did,” he recalls about one of the great releases of his career, with which he recovered rhythms that seemed anachronistic.
He says that in Spain it was not easier: “In Spain they didn’t play Caribbean music or salsa music or anything, and they told us that this record would never be played here”. And he thanks his “now soul friend” Luis Merino, former director of the music radio program Los 40 Principales, for his support in making it possible.
Estefan has left much to global music, much of it as a Hispanic icon, but she sums it up in the most modest and personal way, alluding to her family’s multiple origins, some of them Spanish: “I hope that our legacy is pride in who we are, in holding firm to our cultural roots.
“Music was my catharsis as a child, it helped me get through very difficult moments in my life and it will always remain that way,” she concludes, reported Agencia EFE.
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