YouSaid · the spoken record

Gloria Estefan

lines on the record: 49
first: 2023-08-03
most recent: 2023-08-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I did very much because they had been observing me and customs. They're undercover there. I didn't know that. But they were observing me. They wanted me to be a supervisor. They had already offered me the supervisor role in my job. I already joined the band, so I was kind of heading in a different direction. But I was very honored that they considered that. And they approached me. They wanted me to join. And I was all about it. I was so excited. When I came and told my mom, she had the biggest fit that I had seen her have she goes, your father already gave his life for two countries. How could you tell me you're going to live your life? How am I going to be able to live the rest of my life worrying about you? So Cuban mom comes through, although I would really bug her.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It like would I love to? Yes, I would absolutely, you know, there's so many things I'd love to do another Christmas album. I'd love to do a Spanish standards. I'd love to do a part two of the standards, but all up tempo and call it the double standard.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Said, I would love nothing more than to do that. I did it in a little snippet during COVID when I wrote we needed time. That came from a conversation with my son. That's inspiration. That's one of the, I hung up the phone. I told him, he literally said to me, mom, you know, this has been tough, but it gave me time to catch up and something hit me. And I said to him, there's a song in there somewhere. And he said, write it, mom. I hung up the phone and I started writing immediately. And by the end of the day, I had written that song. I recorded it. I went out of my boat and shot a video. And I put it out there as a gift to my fans. So I did in a kind of little small way. I gave it as a gift, you know, that's what a musician does. We try to translate the things that we're living and experiencing as humans into writing or art or painting or music. So I've been doing...”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To receive the highest honor that is bestowed on a citizen and a civilian from the presidency, from the government, from Congress, for example, Library of Congress that chose rhythm is going to get you as one of only 500 songs to be protected from a nuclear blast. I don't know who is going to care about listening to music after a nuclear blast, but needless to say, because supposedly it changed the cultural fabric of this nation. As an immigrant, I know my father was smiling from heaven that day. My mother got to see us receive the presidential medal of freedom. And we were incredibly honored, Emilio and I to be the first couple to receive it. It was really special. And it was one of those moments that we will remember forever. And accolades are nice or wonderful, but that's never been the reason we've done anything in our life. So things like that are very meaningful. And also for us as Cuban Americans.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Form of public life. God, no. To me, I think I have a lot more power to do good and to make change from the private sector. The minute you get involved in politics, it's a machine that chews you up and spits you out. And you know what? Thank you that somebody at least put themselves under that kind of scrutiny and craziness to try to lead a country or a nation or whatever. It's a machine that has very tentacles. And I would not want to get involved in anything of that nature. I would try to hope that they try to elevate the rhetoric and try to really think about what's good for the people that they're leading. And it's a tough politics is a tough animal. I really don't. It's something that my music took me away from politics. That's why you're never going to hear it.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“did ask me it was going to turn a beautiful spiritual mission into a political one because I wasn't going to stay quietly by and not say the things that I've said worldwide that I don't agree with this dictatorship that has been in Cuba. I think it's the longest running dictatorship at this moment right now. Even though Fidel's gone, his family is still very much in control. I would want Cuba to be free, free to choose who they want in power, free to join the world, free to travel wherever they want to go, which they can't, free to choose their careers and not be told what to study, you know, just free to speak their minds, even if they disagree. And, you know, who knows at this point if I'll ever get that opportunity, but that would be what I would want in order to celebrate with them their freedom.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“O Lordy An impossible question because they all mean something different and they all have such special meaning. But I think Olos A ⁇ os que Mequedan was the first one I wrote with Emilio together with him. So that's always going to be. And it's become an amazing wedding song. But I mean, I love all of them. They all mean something very special to me.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh yes, we're going to do red table talks. It's an offshoot of Jada Pinkett Smith eponymous series that she started whole new genre. It'll be Red Table Talk the Estefans. It's my daughter, my niece Lily, who's an Emmy winning TV personality for 30 years on Latin television and me discussing topics that are really important to our times, to women, to families and Latinos have a tough time discussing some of these things. So we're going to be honest and as natural and bare as Jada has been in our own way. And we're starting recording it. Hopefully this will come out in October.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we released it at the peak. They thought we were crazy to take a risk like that when we were at the top of the pop charts. And I would always say, this is exactly why I want to do it right now, because there's going to be an interest of my fans to learn more about where I came from and where this sound came from. So for my kids and my grandson, that became so important to salvage part of our culture musically through that album. And that's why I'm so proud of what it did worldwide and continues to.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely I'm in exile that besides the fact that that's the description and anything I've ever read, Cuba is very strong in my heart and mind because my mother made it a point that we deeply know our roots, our traditions, our culture first because she thought we were going back. I have a round trip ticket in my safe deposit box, Pan Am Airlines. And then when she saw that that wasn't going to happen, it became even more important. We spoke only Spanish at home. I learned English when I went to school. I sang all those songs, those old songs for my mom and my grandmother. So when we came up with the concept of Mitiera, I knew how those words were used. I knew what vocabulary Latins use a lot of double entendre. There's a lot of sex talked about, but underneath the words, it's always subtext because they, so it's very sexy, it's beautiful. And I knew how these things were shaped. So we worked for five years on that album.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“20 days shy of a year on march first, nineteen ninety one, I stepped back on stage in Miami. That wasn't my plan. All I cared about was walking, but then six months after my accident, when I saw my body coming back, I thought, you know what? Maybe this is the whole reason that I became famous.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I broke my back and I was grabbing my legs and lifting them up because it would alleviate a little bit because two vertebrae had been pushed in and exploded and were my spine was literally resting on a sliver of bone and I was numb but in pain and she held my head for an hour and a half until paramedics got there she put my head in her lap and said don't move you cannot move”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fortunately he had gotten up to get some candy out of his bunk and the whole back was crushed. So he was under everything that had fallen in the center of the bus in the dark. When Emilo brought him and sat him next to me, I was looking at him. He didn't seem injured, but he looked like he was going to go into shock. He kept saying, mommy, please get up, please get up. And I couldn't. So I held his hand. And I told him, look, I can't get up right now, but hold my hand. You know, you make me feel better. I picked a point on the roof of the bus and started doing my Lamas breathing to try to be able to withstand the pain and at the same time thinking, at least I have pain. It was a nurse behind us in a car. She found her way around the doorway. We almost went over an embankment and she said, I'm a nurse. Can I help you? And I said, I think...”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I try to get up and I couldn't. I couldn't get up from the floor of the bus. I had a metallic taste in my mouth. I felt around my back to see if something was coming out. Like if some bone or there was blood, fortunately that hadn't happened. But I knew in that instance that I'd broken my back and I told Emilio, I go, babe, I think I broke my back. And he goes, no, no, maybe you dislocated. I go, find the baby. Because at this point, all I'm thinking is my son had been in the back of the bus.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We feel this explosion. I had just woken up from a nap. I thought we had arrived at the concert venue and we had stopped because there was an accident seven miles ahead of us and all the traffic was backed up. I opened my eyes and boom it felt like a crash. I thought momentarily we had just met the president at the White House. I thought maybe somebody had put a bomb on the bus because they weren't happy. I don't know what I thought, but I opened my eyes on the floor of the bus, looking up. The front of the bus had been torn away. It was snowing inside the bus, which ended up being a blessing because now the first thing you do to a victim of a spinal cord injury is put them on ice. So nature, without this being known yet at that time, put me on ice. Emilio was on top of me bleeding like profusely. It was, I was...”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every minute. I kept praying to faint and I wouldn't, but I took a lot of hope in the amount of pain that I was in. Because since I knew so much about the spine and the workings of the human body because of what I'd gone through with my dad, he came back from Vietnam with Agent Orange Poisoning. And they said he had MS, multiple sclerosis. But he had so many symptoms that had nothing to do with that. It was triggered by this Agent Orange poisoning. So I knew. And I knew that if I was feeling pain that I hadn't severed the cord. But funny enough, you know, I've always, we all have this, but I've always had a kind of psychic thing where I get these flashes that just come into my mind as a certainty. And they happen. So cut to that day on the bus, you know, needless to say, having a father in a wheelchair, that was one of my big fears. Too.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They know you're honest because when they feel those things, you can't BS that you can't make it up. You can't fake it. So people will know if something is honest without knowing why they know, but they know. It gets on the music. And that's what it's been. It's been my expression of emotion for my whole life and thoughts and musings and analysis. I poured into my music.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish I could tell you a formula. There's two ways in my estimation of writing a song. There's inspiration. And these songs I feel come through me rather than from me. There are certain channels, and most of my songs I've written between midnight and six in the morning when my family's asleep, when the phones aren't ringing, and when the air waves like the vibe waves are quieter on my side of the world. So that's when I felt more inspiration and that's when I feel like I can really. Some songs have been written 15 minutes. Anything for you coming out of the dark, they've been through me, like I said. Other ones you learn and you craft and you can always be better. We connect more on a very deep emotional level when we're going through sadness or difficulty or pain. And people can identify.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before I made that commitment and he just, you know, we've evolved and grown. I've been there for him. He's been there for me. We're really a team. And that's important. Yeah. So I was blessed.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The fame part was the last thing that I ever thought about. I didn't read my own press because undoubtedly I had a different feeling when I would finish an interview and when at the beginning I would read what they wrote. I'd go like, what? It frustrates you. So I thought, you know what? I'm not going to focus on that. We would just focus on producing the music we love, writing, the excitement of preparing the shows, making the shows bigger and better than ever, growing in that way. Emilio stopped performing so he could be more in control and help me by being in charge of lighting and sound and I could feel comfortable up there knowing that there was somebody in the front taking care of that. wasn't a problem because sometimes in this world egos get you in trouble that they really do. I mean, you need to have an ego. Everybody has one. But when it starts being detrimental or you just think about you being like,”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every performance I did affected how I performed. And I tried to grow with each one. And what it did is give me a very clear picture on fame because it's something that's relative. It's given to you. It's not anything that you hold intrinsically. It's something that can be given and taken away. So it was really useful to me to go over there and you're this huge star and then come back here and you're playing a wedding. It really keeps your feet on the ground and I loved every minute of it. I loved the wedding just as much as I loved the 50,000 people watching and cheering. And it just made us continue to want to grow and evolve and get our music to other places. It gave me the opportunity to grow slowly and to get comfortable in my own skin and just relax and let people see how music felt to me.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It became Miami submachine later on when we did our first recording in 1976. By the time you realize that we weren't just boys anymore, he was my boss for a year, and he wanted, Amelia wanted to do an original album. So he was getting ready to go into the studio. And another musician friend of ours who ended up being the best man at our wedding, he had another band. He said, look, there's a small local company. They're interested in signing you. Why don't you do the album with them? Emilio invited me to write. And I said, look, I've done parodies and poems. I think I could write music. I did. We recorded our album in a very short time because we didn't have a budget really. Got it on the radio in South America. So all of a sudden, a year or so later, we were going to do a stadium with like 50,000 people in Latin America and then wedding in Miami for 200 people because they weren't playing our music.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My mom will kill me, first of all. And secondly, I've got two jobs. I'm starting school. I can't. So then two weeks later, he tracked me down. He called the people. He found my number. He called my house. My sister picked up and she says, it's that boy. So I talked to him and I really wanted to do it. I really wanted to so bad. And he said, look, come to my apartment. We have rehearsal bring whoever you want to bring. I brought my mother, my sister, and my grandma. And I remember being up against the wall of the apartment. with a crowded tiny apartment with a nine-piece band and everybody in the courtyard dancing again another magical moment because they had no choice the band was rehearsing it's either dance and party or not sleep and uh i joined the band for fun”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Playing and they're playing Do the Hustle on the accordion, the guy. I'm going like, whoa, that's brave. But it was like this charisma that they had and this happiness. And I was overwhelmed with that feeling, right? So we run into each other in a doorway and I go, he says, you're that girl, aren't you? I remember you. I go, yeah, I remember you too. You came to Rafael's house, my friend. So he says, why don't you sit in with the band? You know, we don't have a singer. I go, oh my gosh, my mother, who was sitting there listening in, goes, yes, sing, please. I found two songs that we both knew, Cuban Standards. I sang. I got a standing ovation. They knew me my whole life, these people. They had been listening to me sing since I was a girl. But with that band behind me, it was magical to me too, clutching the mic stand like I'm going to die. And that night he asked me to join the band and I said, no, I go, listen, I can.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nights a week, I taught community school guitar, and I was about to start school going from eight in the morning to noon. So I was swamped and my mom tried to drag me to a wedding that summer of one of my dad's army buddies' daughter that I grew up with in South Carolina. I tried to bail on it and say, mom, no, I'm too busy, but then she guilted me into it. Your father can't go. He's ill. You need to represent. Like, you know, Cuban guilt. That's big. So I went. And I remember we were always late to everything. So we missed the ceremony at the church. We're walking into the reception. And I look, and there's, to me, I mean, I had never gone anywhere. I took care of my dad the whole time. I didn't date anyone. I never had a social life. So I walk into this magical room all decorated for the wedding and there's a band.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In a pair of shorts, and an accordion which made it look like he was naked, quite honestly, because the accordion covered the shorts. So I'm going like, oh, what's this? All right. So in walks Emilio at the time, he only had a mustache. And I see him. He seemed like a big man to me, although he's only four and a half years older than me. So I was 17 right there. So he was 22 because this was May. He had just turned 22. He gave us the pointers. He heard me saying he left. We did the gig. Everybody went their separate ways. I already had two jobs because college work studies since I'm a French minor. I was working as an interpreter at the airport in customs and immigration for French, Spanish, and English. That job was every day, six days a week from one in the afternoon to nine at night. Then from 9.30 to 11.30.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To give us some pointers on how to do this. So, of course, I was dying. I'm sitting there on the floor. My friend was at the his guitar. There was a piano player, a flute player girl there. And there's a knock at the door. And I'm sitting on the floor. So my first view.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like anything else, I believe. I believe that Destiny throws some things in your path. Of course, we are free whether we choose to follow that path or totally flip it on its ear. I sang at the folk masses because my friends in high school would always make me sing. They love my voice. If there was ever, I went to an all-girl Catholic high school. My best friend, they'd make me bring my guitar and sing in the shows and that was dying because I really don't like being the center of attention. I had to get used to that part. So we had a brother school because it was an all-girls school. And in that brother school, one of my friends, the guy we would play in the folk messes together. And he was a year ahead of me. He said, look, I want to put together a band for one day for our parents for this religious encounter they were coming back because I want you to be the singer. My dad works at Cardi. He invited this guy to come over that has his own band, Miami Latin boy.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“tools and I've continued to study through my life all this time that people said I came back I didn't come back from anywhere I've been here just doing a lot of other things but continuing to hone my skills I think it's important to continue to learn and evolve and grow”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Later on I learned classical guitar for my dad because he really wanted me to learn that when he was in Vietnam he later went to Vietnam I was studying classical guitar but we couldn't afford voice lessons or wouldn't have known where to look for that. It wasn't until I was already in the band, married and had my son that I started investing because it really is a very valuable investment for any singer, any musician. When your instrument is your body, you know, I had a lot of bad habits to break because I sang emotionally since I was a child. I didn't know the right technique or where to position a voice, but always wanting to do things better. So I found an Italian teacher, Gina Moretta, who started teaching me the right technique and thanked the Lord because you can ruin your voice. I had an 18-piece band behind me. It was super loud on stage. And if I didn't have these...”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And, you know, I couldn't afford music lessons or voice lessons. My mom couldn't afford it. We were in South Carolina a couple years after Texas, we were stationed in Fort Jackson. And one of my dad's troops was a young man that was famous in Cuba. His whole family, they had a TV show, and he was a young child on the show, but now he was in his 20s. I told my dad, I want to learn guitar, dad. I really want, you know, somebody to teach me the guitar. So he spoke to this man, Rolando Choa, who had a famous family in Cuba, and he started teaching me how to play chords so I could accompany myself on the guitar. He was charging nothing. He was just happy to be able to do something other than be in the army.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“with my mom And the radio was on. And I hear this song come on. And my hair stood on end on my arms, I still remember sitting mesmerized and I wouldn't get out of the car. My mom said, let's go. I go, mom, let me finish this song. And I stayed in the car. And the smell of laundromat was coming in through the window. And to this day, whenever I hear that song, I smell laundromat. I have an olfactory memory. That's crazy. But that song moved me deeply. And only in retrospect did I realize that it's a bolero.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell you what happened. I mean, my mom's record collection was my first introduction to music. So she not only had Celia Cruz, Caciao, all the big grades of Cuba, but she also had Nack King Cole, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, and Carmen Miranda from Brazil later on Shobim. You know, these amazing, the big Brazilian waves. That was the first thing I listened to. But when my father came back from Bay of Pigs, he joined the US Army. He went into training for six months. And we were stationed then in San Antonio, Texas, Fort Sam Houston. He was doing intensive English. He went in as an officer. So I remember my sister was born in 63. My father actually met President Kennedy when he came to Texas right before he was assassinated. And he thanked him for what he had done to get them out of Cuba. But in any case, I was driving up to Alonda.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Laundry together and we're really an amazing support system for each other. And my mom would have me sing and recite poetry for them as entertainment.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two years. He was a political prisoner in Cuba for two years and he came with the exchange that Kennedy made for trucks and medicines to Cuba. They let out not all of them, but they let out quite a few of the men that were in the Bay of Pigs invasion. And that was my mother. She would drag me from rosary to rosary to church to praying for all our men. She had moved in all her friends into these two little strips of apartments and she had found brand new. So I was raised kind of like in a commune. It was only women. And all the women had their men in jail in Cuba. And they all had kids, more or less my age. And we bought one car that cost $50, an old car. Only one of them could drive, so they would pile us all in. All the kids in and go do groceries together or go do.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and had in custody that my mom found out that my dad had been arrested in Cuba after the invasion. Days later, he had been in hiding. They had killed his captain inside the tank, and he had to have the turret was broken, so he had his dead captain with him for four days.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when they finally got to Cuba, the equipment that they actually sent was broken down. It was nothing of what they had been expecting. They didn't deliver the munitions that were necessary. They literally left them on the banks of Bay of Pigs. And all the air support and everything that they were expecting from the Americans didn't materialize. So my father was the head of the tanks division. He was jailed immediately there. My mother only found out that something was going on the night before the invasion, he came to the house and he told her that he would be leaving again and that he didn't know what was going to happen. So all of a sudden my mother, we see on the news this thing happened. We don't hear from him. And it wasn't until we saw on television when Cuba posted the videos of the men that they had arrested.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And intellect and whatnot, but well, they thought that they were doing her harm there. It did cost her in the long run. She had to go back to school here and revalidate her teaching credentials. But then he brought us here. We lived with my aunt who had also left Cuba for a few weeks. Then we found an apartment that my mother found. And immediately upon moving in, my father disappeared. He left a note to my mother and told her, you're going to be receiving $150 a month from the US government. Here's the number for a doctor. I can't tell you where I'm going. But please, you know, take care of Glorita. I can't give you any more details. We now know he had gone to train in Guatemala. They trained the U.S. Army trained them with top-of-the-line equipment.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, what happened was my father came on the ferry to keep, once he was released from jail in Cuba, he tried to find a job. He tried to look for a job and they were blacklisted, his entire family. He also knew a lot of information about Castro because of his father being in the army. And so he told my mother, I have to get you and glory that out of Cuba. And my mother didn't want to go. She says, I'm not leaving without you. He goes, I'm going to go first and set us up. So he went on the ferry to Key West. He found an apartment. And then my mother and I flew on Pan Am Airlines. Her and I, they only let us take one suitcase. They ripped up her PhD in education at the airport because they told her, no, you're not taking your education, which is really an inane comment because your education isn't a piece of paper. It's an experience.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and can stand the taste of violet. I still remember it to this day. But yeah, she would visit him in the jail and take him supplies and so that I could see him. So I don't have a lot of memories of that. I remember that.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, we were still in Cuba. My mother took me to visit my father in jail and one of the top three was Fidel Castro Camilo Sien Fuego and Chegevara were kind of the three heads of the revolution. And Camilos Enfuego was at the prison that day and I was in line with my mom. And of course I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty, and my mother's trying to shut me up. And Camilo Cienfuego comes and grabs a little tin cup from the wall and fills it with water and hands it to me. And my mom didn't want me to drink. That God knows what germs were on that. And when she said, no, no, thank you. And he says, what? This isn't good enough for you, whatever. And he made me drink it. And I got a huge infection in my mouth. And I remember this because they would treat it with this violet tasting stuff that they would put in my mouth for this.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the first lady at the airport, and this is going to get really bad. And she said, don't go back. And he goes, I have to go back. I'm a police officer for this city, all hell's breaking loose. And he went back and she told him they're going to jail you. And he goes, I have to go back whether or not they jail me. And yes, they jailed him and his father and then released him three months later because they jailed his father for nepotism because they were trumping up charges. And of course, there was no proof of anything and they hadn't done anything, so they had to release him three months later.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then the first lady found out, plus he was a gorgeous, I got to say, my dad was a gorgeous man. He was beautiful. And they chose, they handpicked the first ladies motorcycle escort, and he was one of them. So wherever the first lady, Batista's first lady, went, my dad had to be there because he was in the motorcade heading the motorcade. And the night that the coup happened, 58 to 59, he was at the presidential palace because there was a giant party New Year's Eve party going on. And he was there in the detail for the First Lady. So he came home, my mother said he was pale as a sheet, sweating profusely and locked himself in the bathroom and told my mother, you know, she knocked on the door. What's happening? What's happening? And he said, we are in real trouble. The president just left the country. I just left him.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, what happened was he was, my father wanted to be in the army. He was a military guy. He loved it. He had filled an application to join the army. When my grandfather saw his application, he ripped it up and threw it away and never told my dad because he didn't want to be accused of nepotism with a son joining the army. So when my father asked my grandfather, hey, what's happening? I haven't got my application back. I applied. He goes, no, I ripped it up. I don't want you to be in the army. They're going to accuse me then of having favoritism. So then my father did the next best thing. He became a police officer in the motorcycle police force and got a reputation for being an incredibly”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was to sing to me. I would melt, I would completely melt and become stare at her and hypnotized. And when I started talking, I started singing. It came with me. I would emulate whatever in Cuba. They literally had to pull me off the sidewalk because somehow from hearing on the radio and on TV, I learned the revolutionary anthem that the Castro regime was putting out there and my father was in jail for being a police officer in the night of the presidential palace when the coup happened, he got arrested along with his father, who was a commander in the armed forces. So imagine I'm there in this singing this ant over my mother's saying, you can't sing, I come inside. But I just had an amazing memory for music and it started really early.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She had the curls and they had a worldwide contest to find a Spanish speaking Shirley Temple so that they could take her to Hollywood and she would serve as a stand-in for Shirley Temple and a lot of the contract players of the day like Deanna Durban and other Jane Wyman and she won But when they told my grandfather that one of them my grandmother had to give up the rights to their child because they didn't want to sign a contract and then have a divorce happen and have the child become a pawn. He put his foot down and told my grandmother absolutely not. She's not going anywhere. So to me, my mother was always the diva of the family. She walked into a room and you knew she was there. She was always telling jokes. She would break into song. And the only way she could get my diaper on, she claims, was or claimed.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Later when he emigrated to New York, also made it big with his band there. Both my uncles, my father's brothers sang, my grandmother wrote poetry. My father was a military guy. He was the one that didn't venture into. I bet he probably could have sung if he wanted to. And then my mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double as a child. She was her same age.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know if special is the word, but ever since I have a memory, I remember thinking first that I was really old for some reason. I felt like I had been around. And I also felt that one day I might do something very different. I didn't know what it was or how it would come about. But I did have a feeling that there was something in my future that was not going to be more the same. It was going to be a unique thing. I had no clue what. But I sing since I talk. That came with me. Yeah. Maybe because I do have very strong genetic musical genes on both sides. On my dad's side, we had a classical pianist, a classical violinist, a flautist that had his own band famous in Cuba, Fajardo and his all-stars. Fajardi Sous Estrellas.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when I started talking, I started singing. It came with me. I would emulate whatever in Cuba. They literally had to pull me off the sidewalk because somehow from hearing on the radio and on TV, I learned the revolutionary anthem that the Castro regime was putting out there. And my father was in jail. The front of the bus had been torn away. It was snowing inside the bus, which ended up being a blessing because now the first thing you do to a victim of a spinal cord injury is put them on ice.”
2023-08-03 · Intelligence Squared · Gloria Estefan on the Latin American Dream · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT