‘Queen of the night:’ Martha Flores, Cuban exile radio pioneer, dies in Miami
The Miami night has lost its “Queen”.
Martha Flores, one of the leading figures of Miami’s Cuban exile radio, who for decades cooed listeners of Spanish-language radio in Miami with charisma and professionalism and became known as La Reina de la Noche (Queen of the Night), died Saturday.
Her death, at the age of 92, was confirmed by her family and Univision Miami, where she served as an announcer and journalist for Radio Mambí 710 AM with her program La Noche y Usted. She aired the last session of the show live Friday night.
Flores was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late May, her son, José Acosta, told el Nuevo Herald.
”She told me she wanted to continue doing the program last night, because she wanted to continue working as long as God gave her the strength to do it,” Acosta said on Saturday.
For more than six decades, the Cuban commentator, singer and actress starred on radio and as a spokesperson for causes such as the elderly and the sick, cancer awareness and pet care.
Politicians often sought out spots on her show. “They say that for a politician to be recognized in this community, he has to visit my program,” Flores told el Nuevo Herald in an interview in 2014 to celebrate her 55th anniversary on Miami airwaves. She was the first Cuban woman to host in her own program in South Florida.
”All of us who knew her are shocked by this news. Her legacy and her great example of honor, her love for Cuba, for her audience and the causes she supported, they will remain forever, and our ‘Queen of the Night’ will now shine with more light,” said Mónica Rabassa, vice president of operations for Univision Miami.
Martha Flores in Cuba
Flores was born in Cárdenas, in the province of Matanzas, on Dec. 27, 1928, the daughter of Pedro Flores and Ela Montero. The family moved to Havana during her childhood, where she studied at Colegio La Inmaculada. She studied journalism at the Manuel Márquez Sterling School and later graduated as a stenographer and typist from the Professional School of Commerce.
Her father did not want her to work in the media, so she devoted herself to administrative work, both in the Agricultural and Industrial Bank of Cuba, and in the Cuban Senate.
After Fidel Castro’s rise to power, she fled in a small plane to Miami with the help of Cuban Sen. Rolando Masferrer, said Gustavo León, a close friend and Flores’ doctor.
When she landed on Jan. 17, 1959, dressed in a beige sweater and black pants, she brought a suitcase with eight changes of clothes and a plastic replica of the image of Our Lady of Charity. She was determined to carve out a future until the day she would be able to return to Cuba.
She began life in Miami working four part-time jobs, among them selling women’s clothing in downtown Miami and furniture at a store on Calle Ocho. She also did accounting work out of a garage, sang in a restaurant, and produced a radio segment on WMIE, the only one that had any Spanish-language programming at the time.
Called La Voz de la Mujer — The Woman’s Voice — It was the first radio program in Miami to speak out against Cuba’s communist regime, she used to say. Flores had to pay $87.50 a week to go on the air.
”I was the first woman at this station,” Flores told the Miami Herald in an 1999 interview. “I was just talking about politics. It was the Cuba problem, the Cuba problem and the Cuba problem.“
For radio personality Armando Pérez Roura, one of Radio Mambí founders, Flores was an indispensable figure within Miami’s first waves of exiles, adding that her work before the microphones was always unbeatable.
“She did everything in her power to defend the freedom of Cuba. That was her greatest concern for many years,“ recalled Pérez Roura, noting that Flores never made concessions to the island’s communist regime. ”The most unfortunate thing is that Martha was left without seeing her land again.“
Voice of Cuban exiles in Miami
Flores was distinguished by her open microphone policy, which allowed radio listeners to talk about what they wanted without a time limit, and also by her anti-Castro editorial position.
“Martha turned her work on the radio into a vocation to serve the public. Through her program, she always managed to solve any type of community problem,” recalled journalist José Alfonso Almora, a commentator on WQBA 1140AM.
From WMIE, Flores moved to La Fabulosa WFAB station in the late 1960s, and, in 1976, to Unión Radio WOCN. It was in 1982 that she created her flagship program La Noche y Usted (The Night and You) at WRHC-Cadena Azul.
She joined WQBA in 1992, and, in 1996, WAQI Radio Mambí, a bastion of Miami Cuban radio that is now part of Univision Communications. The three-hour program dealt with Cuban issues and local politics.
“Her charisma and credibility earned her the respect of those who dealt with her. She knew how to fill the emptiness and loneliness of a large part of Miami’s nightly audience, since her words always served as comfort for those who considered her part of the family,” Almora said.
Beyond the microphones and the limelight, Flores was a community activist. She took on philanthropic causes on behalf of organizations like the League Against Cancer and the League Against Blindness. She also campaigned to raise funds for soup kitchens, animal protection programs and the Jackson Health System.
On weekends, she visited soup kitchens in Little Havana, participated in charities, acted as a master of ceremonies, and enjoyed home life.
“Martha was a pioneer in all aspects of the Cuban life of the woman in exile,” said León, her doctor.
“My mother always lived to help others in her community,” said her son José.
Even as the exile community experienced generational changes and new waves of immigrants, she remained a beloved figure.
“Cubans realize that I am very transparent, very clear, with a strong desire to see my homeland free, but also with the desire to help my fellow exiles,” Flores once told el Nuevo Herald.
For her persistent contributions, she received countless awards and recognition from organizations and local governments, among them, a star on Calle Ocho, in 1996.
“This legend also did a lot for Cuban exiles using the radio to help the first wave of newcomers,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez wrote on Twitter in Spanish.
Through her radio program, Flores could just as easily get a wheelchair donation for a disabled person as well as medicine for someone suffering from an illness, remembered the actor Sergio Doré Jr., who was also her godfather.
“Martha was an incredible human being. She never skimped on her strength or time to help others. But the most important thing is that all this altruistic work was done with her best smile and in exchange for nothing,“ said Doré.
Flores is survived by her husband, Rosendo Soriano, her son José, her daughter-in-law Gricel Acosta, and her granddaughters, Chelsea Durán and Jocelyn Janes. Funeral services will be private due to the coronavirus pandemic.
El Nuevo Herald staff writer Arturo Arias-Polo contributed to this story.
You can read the this obituary in Spanish in el Nuevo Herald.
This story was originally published July 18, 2020 at 5:32 PM.
