BY LYDIA MARTIN

WASHINGTON - In a storage room at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Celia Cruz's trademark wigs and shoes and gowns play tricks. You almost expect them to leap off the shelves, charged still with the force of an artist who moved generations of fans.

In May, this most American of museums, the place that is home to the Star-Spangled Banner, Dorothy's ruby slippers, Fonzie's leather jacket and Archie Bunker's favorite chair, will unveil an exhibit about Cruz, a black woman from an island in the Caribbean who sang exclusively in Spanish.

That museum staffers are bracing for some of the biggest crowds the place has ever seen says a lot about the Queen of Salsa's reach. But it says even more about the cultural realities of a nation struggling to understand itself as the landscape changes and the Hispanic population surges.

''Through Celia, you can explain how influential Latinos have been in this country. Hers is absolutely an American story,'' said Marvette Perez, the museum's curator for Latino history and culture, who passionately put together this show and patiently explained Celia and Latin culture to museum staffers who didn't always get it.

STILL DON'T GET IT

''They wanted me to translate Azucar! in the title of the show. They wanted to see Sugar! Azucar and sugar are two different things,'' said Perez, a native of Puerto Rico. ``Everyone has been supportive, but I still don't think they get the power of this woman, that this show will set off a pilgrimage.''

Indeed, the museum is hoping Azucar! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz will draw a new Hispanic audience, said director Brent D. Glass.

''I really hope to attract new Latino audiences not only to Celia but to the museum. There are a lot of must-sees. The Star-Spangled Banner and a uniquely American package,'' Glass said. ``Whenever I mention Celia to anybody, they light up. I think people who may know her music but don't know her story are going to be very interested. Celia is so representative of the American Dream.''

Pedro Knight, Cruz's widower, says he intends to be first in line.

''There is nothing in the world that Celia loved more than her stage and her people. And even though she won't be at that exhibit in body, that will still be her there,'' Knight said while standing at Cruz's grave in New York on the first anniversary of her death. Cruz died in July 2003.

Morgan Stanley is the presenting sponsor, contributing most of the more than $1 million that it will cost to put on the show, which includes a replica of Cuba's famed Tropicana, a typical Cruz dressing room and a short documentary by Miami filmmaker Joe Cardona.

Morgan Stanley also will present a traveling show slated for 2006, with stops in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio and other cities. But the museum is looking for additional sponsors .

Perez collected all sorts of personal artifacts, including the beat-up Fendi purse with which Cruz loved to travel, and dresses from each of the six decades her career spanned, including one she wore in Cuba for a 1950s performance and the Narciso Rodriguez dress she wore during her last public appearance, for a Telemundo tribute to her in Miami.

Many of the finds come from four storage spaces Cruz kept in New Jersey, near her home. There are countless photographs, posters, lobby cards, album covers, rare footage and music ranging from her early years with Sonora Matancera -- the band that gave Cruz her start in Havana -- to the explosive New York salsa years to the dance- and hip-hop-flavored hits she recorded in her 70s and that confirmed her as an artist who knew how to stay relevant.

FIRST, THE VOICE

''Because she started in radio, people heard her and fell in love with her before they ever saw her. So the first thing you will encounter at the exhibit is Celia's voice. There will be some form of dark space where you hear her and then as you walk through you are confronted with the incredible image of this woman,'' Perez said.

The show promises to be much more than Celia as pop icon. It also investigates race, Afro-Cuban music and the role of one female voice in the world of male-dominated salsa.

''The most amazing picture in this exhibit is a picture of the Fania All-Stars, the guys who basically created salsa,'' Perez said. ``There are all these men in the picture and then there is Celia -- right in the middle. The men, when they have died, have left behind other men who could take their place. But Celia left no woman who could step into her shoes. Nobody has redone Bemba Colora or Cucala. Because nobody can. Celia was a force of nature.''

In a back room of the museum, Perez, in white gloves, holds up an orange rumba dress that Cruz donated to the Smithsonian years ago, her voluptuous hourglass shape still imprinted on the material. The show features dresses from size 2 to size 14.

''She adapted her rumba dresses for the stage. They are all polyester, really practical and light. The real ones are linen and very heavy,'' Perez said.

Priscilla Wood, curator of the museum's costume collection, pulls out a Bergdorf Goodman ad in a 1951 magazine she recently found. It features a shoe that looks identical to those famously worn by Cruz -- the heel-less heel.

''They were made for her by a shoemaker in Mexico. Possibly, she took that magazine to Mexico on one of her trips and asked him to make her that shoe,'' Wood said.

The fact-gathering has been painstaking. But the thing the curators still can't put their finger on is what exactly made Cruz such a compelling force, a force that went beyond a rich, joyous voice and a soulful, sabor-drenched dance step.

VOICE FROM THE EARTH

''I have a video for a live 1973 performance of Bemba Colora,'' Perez said. ``You watch it and it's as if the earth opened up and just a voice came out of it. La tierra cantando. She had the ability to create a trance-like environment at her concerts. If you were there, you were enthralled. There was a mystery to her, as there is with all great singers. And I don't think we should try to solve it.''