Selena’s series on Netflix introduced her to a younger and more diverse audience. Netflix just wrapped filming and is expected to release part 2 in the next year. For Latinos growing up in the 90s, she was both an icon and like us, she straddled the two worlds, of a traditional culture in America, that were so different in nature and at times contradictory.
A Day of Dedication
Two weeks after Quintanilla’s death in 1995, Texas Gov- George Bush declared Quintanilla’s birthday as Selena day in Texas. In January 2019, Representative Ana-Maria Ramos introduced a bill to honor Selena Quintanilla Perez with an official day.
On April 16th, 2021, Selena would have been celebrating her 50th birthday. We all have heartfelt memories of Selena and what her passing meant to us, as a community.To us, Selena’s memory extends far beyond songs.
A Tribute to Selena
In 2019, Kacey Musgraves held an homage that held a weighty bittersweet significance. Almost exactly 24 years earlier – in February 1995 – Selena had performed at the Rodeo in what would be her last televised concert before her death a month later.
Selena in the Library of Congress
Just two years ago, Selena’s 1990 album Ven Conmigo, the first Tejano record by a female artist to go gold, was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry—an honor bestowed on recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Reaching the young people….and going viral
To understand her to reach, one can see it in the youth that is inspired by. Just recently, a viral video of a talented 4-year old whose dad was left speechless when she sang the Selena Classics. She starts blasting “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and belts out the catchy chorus, and instructs her dad to sing. “Canta,” she tells her father, who is surprised that his little girl would even know the Spanish lyrics to this song. “It means to sing,” she explains to him.