"To me, there was nothing a woman couldn't do," Gloria Estefan said of her upbringing in Miami, Florida in the 1960s. The legendary Cuban-American hitmaker was one of three incredible female artists highlighted during the third annual "iHeartRadio SeeHer Hear Her: Celebrating Women Who Make Music and Culture" on Wednesday, March 8th, International Women's Day. The hour-long streamed program saw Estefan, who was joined by her daughter Emily Estefan later in the program, share her story of success, courage, and efforts to challenge the status quo.
Before she could get to her own story though, the "Conga" singer had to highlight the stories of the women who raised her after her father, José Fajardo, was captured and imprisoned in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and her family fled Cuba and settled in Miami. "I've had the amazing examples of my mother [Gloria Fajardo] and my grandmother [Consuelo Perez] and they did everything," Estefan shared. "In fourth grade, they pulled my grandmother out of school, so she spent the rest of her life working. She was an amazing chef and she was chef to two presidents in Cuba along with her father at 12 years old. Then my mother had a Ph.D. in Education from Cuba. She had her own Kindergarten." When her father returned from the Bay of Pigs and joined the US military to fight in the Vietnam War, he came back with Agent Orange poisoning. "Once again, it was the women doing everything," Estefan said. "I was his caregiver while my mom was in school so she could get a better job to be able to send us to prep school, which she did. These women were incredible and through it all my mom was singing."
"Music was my escape," Estefan said. "It's what got me through the toughest parts of my life." At 8 years old she started taking guitar lessons and would learn songs on the radio by ear and record them on a cassette player. "I'd lock myself up in my room and just sing and cry. Taking care of my dad, I didn't want my mom to see the cracks in the armor. [Music is] what got me through... and it's been my lifeline my whole life."
In a segment called "Woman to Woman," Gloria's daughter Emily Estefan joined her to highlight how she's grown to be an "amazing example" just like her mother and grandmother were to her. "You've given so much incredible advice. I feel like we learn from each other," Emily, a singer-songwriter like her mother, said. "Sometimes I'm like, 'You're too nice. You don't have enough boundaries.' Us millennials are like "draw your boundaries" and we draw them too thick but... there's a value to that as well. Look at the Me Too movement. Look how long [women in the entertainment industry] have been silenced. Look how long it was just accepted as something women had to tolerate," Emily said as her mother nodded in agreement. "Where we really get our strength is when you realize that your biggest strength is loving yourself and not giving people the satisfaction of losing your cool."
"Silence is dangerous," Estefan followed up. "Silence is agreeing with what's happening and it's done a lot in my life. I've really stepped forward a lot of times and it was not comfortable to do so or I had to pay a price but to me, it was very important."
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"In the '80s, when our music came up, there were hardly any women on the charts," Estefan recalled of the pop music landscape of that time. "When I came up it started with Janet Jackson, Cyndi Lauper. My idol was Carole King and she was like a unicorn in the business. She, I think, was the first big act that was able to tour on a massive scale. And being a woman, all the bands were male bands. There weren't really female singers, it was very one-sided. The music industry still, to some degree is, but it's changed. It's gotten better."
Estefan went on to add that she's "been blessed that Emilio was my husband and manager. I avoided a lot of the pitfalls that I could see happening around me. Even being married or whatever, you always got executives in power trying to tread that line but I was lucky that Emilio was there protecting and being— you know we were our best cheerleaders and supporting and loving each other."
When asked what advice she'd give to her younger self, Estefan simply said, "Be in the moment. I was fretting so much about getting through the moment that I missed out on a lot." She continued, "I would look over people's heads because I was so nervous and I missed looking into their eyes until I realized that I could and when you do, that connection is so incredible. And that translates to everything in life."
"We sometimes are so stressed," Estefan said. "We have to do so many things, especially women that are working, being mothers, being nurses, being all the things that we are, that we try to get through it rather than just live each moment. Because that's the reason to be alive."
The 2023 iHeartRadio SeeHer Hear Her will be available through March 14th via iHeartRadio's YouTube channel and Facebook page.