Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are focusing
our lens on a figure who occupies this really
specific, almost mythical space in American culture.
Yeah, mythical is a good word for it. We're talking
about a woman who, in a lifespan of only 23 years,
managed to. I mean, she fundamentally altered
the pop culture landscape, not just for Texas,
but really for the entire hemisphere. It's a
story that is... You know, it's incredibly difficult
to tell without getting overwhelmed by the ending.
Right. Most people know the tragic conclusion
before they even know the nuances of the beginning.
But I think the mission today is to really push
past the headlines of the murder and examine
the work. The work, the struggle, the context.
We're talking, of course, about Selena Quintanilla
Perez. But to the world, she's just Selena. Just
Selena. And you see all these titles attached
to her name constantly. Queen of Tiana Music,
The Mexican Madonna, Queen of Cumbia, and...
maybe the most poignant one, The People's Princess.
But looking at the source material we have today,
those titles, they almost obscure the reality
of the grind. They really do. This wasn't some,
you know, overnight success story. This was a
story about labor. about economic survival and
about navigating a really, really complex identity
crisis between the U .S. and Mexico. That tension
is the central theme, isn't it? It's everything.
She was this young woman from Texas breaking
through a genre that was, well, it was essentially
a... Boys Club. Absolutely. And she was navigating
that hyphen in Mexican American in a way that
just hadn't really been done before on such a
massive scale. So we've got a massive stack of
sources to get through biographies, articles,
a lot of industry analysis from the time. We're
going to cover the financial ruin that basically
forced the family into music in the first place.
Yeah. And the secret elopement that nearly ended
it all. We have to talk about that. And the fact
she had to learn Spanish phonetically, which
is just wild. We'll get into the specific stats.
of her posthumous success that i mean it literally
changed the music industry forever it really
did it even led to the creation of people on
espanol the ripple effects are huge so what stands
out to me in these documents is just the sheer
improbability of her rise when you really look
at the stats and the barriers language gender
geography she statistically shouldn't have happened
not at all but she did so let's go back to the
very very start because this story It doesn't
begin in a sold out Astrodome. It starts in Lake
Jackson, Texas on April 16th, 1971. And I found
this little piece of trivia in the notes. Absolutely
wild. The obstetrician who delivered her was
Ron Paul. The former congressman and presidential
candidate. It's one of those like bizarre historical
footnotes you just can't make up. Right. Before
he was a politician, he was just an OBGYN in
Texas. But the more important figures in her
life, obviously, were her parents, Marcella Ophelia
Samora and Abraham Quintanilla Jr. And Abraham
is, he is really the architect of this entire
saga. He was a musician himself, wasn't he? Had
a band called Los Dinos back in the late 50s,
early 60s. He did, and that context is so important.
He tried to make it in the music industry back
then, but he faced a ton of rejection, and a
lot of it was due to racism. The classic story,
right? Too Mexican for the white clubs. And too
American for the Mexican clubs. That experience,
that bitterness, it really, really shaped how
he managed his children's careers later on. He
was determined they wouldn't face the same walls.
And he recognized Selena's ability almost from
birth. The sources say she was just six years
old when he noticed her timing and pitch were
perfect. Six years old. It's incredible. And
for most families, you know, a six -year -old
with a good voice is a fun party trick. Right.
You have her seen for grandma. Exactly. For Abraham,
it was a business plan. The family was running
a Tex -Mex restaurant at the time, Papa Gallo's,
in Lake Jackson, and Abraham put the kids to
work. It wasn't just Selena. No, it was the whole
family unit. You had her brother, A .B., on bass,
her sister, Suzette, on drums, and little six
-year -old Selena on vocals. Can you imagine
walking into a restaurant and seeing a six -year
-old fronting the band? But this wasn't just
a hobby for them. And this is where the economic
context of the 1980s is so critical. You can't
understand Selena's drive without understanding
the Texas oil glut. You really can't. In the
early 80s, the price of oil just collapsed. The
Texas economy was and still is so heavily tied
to energy. So when the oil market crashed. It
had this massive domino effect. Disposable income
just. People stopped going out to eat. And the
Quintanilla family was right in the blast zone.
The restaurant failed. The restaurant failed.
They were evicted from their home and they had
to declare bankruptcy. It was a total financial
catastrophe. And that bankruptcy is the catalyst.
It's what shifts music from being a side hustle,
something they do at the restaurant. To being
their only potential lifeline, their only way
out. They moved to Corpus Christi, and Abraham
essentially decided that the band Selene y Los
Dinos was going to be how they put food on the
table, period. And that's when he bought that
old bus, Big Bertha. Big Bertha. I mean, the
stories about that bus, it didn't have air conditioning
for a long time in Texas. It's brutal. It broke
down constantly. This wasn't a glamorous tour
bus. This was survival on wheels. They were playing
on street corners, at weddings, quinceañeras,
fairs, literally anywhere that would pay them
cash. Just for gas and groceries. That's it.
Just enough to get to the next town and the next
meal. But this intensity, it inevitably clashed
with the fact that these were, I mean, they were
literal children. Selena was still in school.
Until she wasn't. The demands of the road, the
late nights, the constant travel, it became too
much. Abraham pulled her out of school in the
eighth grade. And that caused a huge fight, right?
I was reading about her teacher, Marilyn Greer.
She was absolutely furious about this. Oh, she
was. And you can see her point of view. She saw
this bright student with a lot of potential being
dragged into a life of playing in bars late at
night, exhausting travel. It didn't look right.
She actually threatened to report Abraham to
the Texas Board of Education. She did for what
she called inappropriate conditions. But Abraham's
response was. Well, it's very telling of his
mindset at the time. He told her to mind her
own business. Pretty much. In his mind, she didn't
understand. She saw a child being pulled from
school. He saw the only way to save his family
from poverty. Education was a luxury they couldn't
afford at that moment. To be fair to the narrative,
though, Selena didn't just stop her education.
No, not at all. She earned a high school diploma
through the American School of Correspondence.
She was smart. She was ambitious. She was even
accepted to Louisiana State University later
on. And she enrolled at Pacific Western University
for business administration. Right. So she clearly
had these intellectual ambitions. She wanted
to understand the business side of things. But
that traditional path, you know, high school.
prom, college, that was all sacrificed for the
band. So let's talk about the music itself. They
were playing Tejano. And I think for a lot of
our listeners, especially if you're outside of
Texas or the Southwest, that term might just
sound like a synonym for Mexican music. Right.
But it's a very specific thing. It's a very distinct
regional genre. It's a fusion that was literally
born on the border. You have to remember that
Texas had this massive influx of German, Polish
and Czech immigrants in the 19th and early 20th
centuries. Which explains the accordion. You
always hear the accordion. That's exactly where
it comes from. They brought the accordion and
the polka rhythm. So Tano music takes those European
folk rhythms, the polka, and it blends them with
traditional Mexican styles like ranchera and
cumbia. And then it gets an American twist. And
then this is the key. It mixes in American jazz
and country influences. It is the literal sonic
representation of the hyphen in Mexican American.
But in the 80s, this was a man's world. Male
dominated is a huge understatement. It was a
boys club. And the promoters were explicitly
sexist about it. They told Abraham to his face.
To his face. They said a female lead singer couldn't
sell records in this genre. They were refused
bookings constantly just because Selena was a
girl. The reason they were given was always,
this is a historically male -dominated field.
So you have the gender barrier. And on top of
that, you have this massive linguistic irony.
The future queen of Latin music, Selena Quintanilla.
She couldn't really speak Spanish. That is the
detail that always floors people. She was a native
English speaker. She grew up speaking English
in Texas. Her dream was to sing pop music. Like
Donna Summer or Madonna. Exactly. But Abraham...
with his business hat firmly on insisted they
do heritage music he knew from his own experience
that looking the way she did the american pop
market would be much much harder to crack than
the latin market so she had to learn all the
songs phonetically it was essentially rote memorization
at first can you imagine abraham would teach
her the sounds the pronunciation syllable by
syllable and she would just mimic it It speaks
to her incredible ear, though. It really does.
That perfect pitch we mentioned. She could mimic
the emotion and the accent so perfectly that
native Spanish speakers were completely convinced.
Even if, you know, offstage, she couldn't hold
a long conversation at first. So despite the
promoters saying no girls allowed, and despite
the language barrier of the talent, it just won
out. She recorded her first LP in 1984, but the
real shift, the moment things started to turn,
was in 1987. The Tishano Music Awards? She won
female vocalist of the year. She did. And just
to show you how total her dominance became, she
won that same award for nine consecutive years
after that. Nine years in a row. She basically
retired the trophy. No one else stood a chance.
And exposure on shows like the Johnny Canales
show helped get her face out there. But by 1989,
she was attracting some serious corporate attention.
This brings us to the major label era. And it
starts with this fascinating little business
skirmish between EMI Latin and Sony Music Latin.
Right. Both wanted to sign her. Both wanted her
badly. And this is a classic case study in business
strategy versus quick cash. Sony came to the
table with a huge checkbook. They offered double
the signing fee that EMI offered. Double the
money. For a family that had been bankrupt just
a few years prior, that must have been incredibly
tempting. It had to be. But Abraham was playing
the long game. He had learned from his own past.
He chose EMI Latin because of one man, Jose Bejar.
And what did Bejar see? Bejar was the head of
the newly formed EMI Latin, and he saw something
that the execs at Sony, and honestly, even his
own bosses at EMI didn't quite see. He saw the
crossover potential. He saw the future. He explicitly
told his superiors, I have found the next Gloria
Estefan. He believed Selena could sell to the
English -speaking market. Sony just wanted a
Tejano singer for the regional market. Behar
wanted a global superstar. But even within EMI,
Behar had to fight for her. Oh, yeah. His bosses
were deeply skeptical that a Mexican -American
woman from Texas could cross over into mainstream
pop. They actually denied his request for an
English crossover album at first. What was their
reasoning? They told her she needed to build
a bigger base first. Go prove yourself in the
Latin market and then we'll talk. So she went
to work. The album Ven Conmigo in 1990 was the
first Tejano album by a female artist to go gold.
A huge milestone. But the real explosion was
Entre Ami Mundo in 1992. That's the one. That
album contains Como La Flor. Which is arguably
her signature song. Absolutely. It's the song
everyone knows. And musically, that song is so
interesting because it's not just a traditional
polka. It has this synth pop drive to it. That
was A .B. Quintanilla's genius as a producer.
He was evolving the sound of Tejano, making it
slicker, more modern, more radio -friendly for
a pop audience, but while keeping that core cumbia
rhythm. And it worked. Como La Flor hit number
one on the regional Mexican charts and just stayed
there for months. But more importantly, it was
the key that unlocked Mexico. And we have to
pause on the Mexico strategy because for a pocho,
which is, you know, a slang term for an Americanized
Mexican conquering the music market in Mexico,
is incredibly difficult. There's a lot of cultural
gatekeeping. A ton. Pocho can be a derogatory
term. It implies you've lost your roots, that
you aren't Mexican enough. So when EMI booked
her for a press tour in Monterey, the executives
were sweating bullets. They were terrified the
press would just eat her alive for her broken
Spanish. They thought it would be a disaster.
They thought she'd be mocked. They'd call her
a fraud. Instead, the complete opposite happened.
She won them over. She charmed them completely.
She went into that press conference and instead
of trying to fake her fluency or be something
she wasn't, she was just humble. She apologized
for her Spanish. She hugged people. She was warm
and genuine. And the press loved it. They dubbed
her an artista del pueblo. an artist of the people.
And you have to look at the visual landscape
of Mexican media in the early 90s. The telenovelas
were dominated by very light -skinned, often
blonde, European -looking actors. And then Selena
walks in. And Selena looked like the audience.
She looked like the people in the crowd. She
wasn't some distant, fair -skinned star. She
was one of them. And that connection was immediate
and powerful. The proof was in the numbers. She
played to 70 ,000 people in Nuevo León. 70 ,000.
It was definitive proof. She wasn't just a Texas
regional act anymore. She was an international
star. And right as her professional life is going
completely stratospheric, her personal life enters
this very dramatic, almost Shakespearean phase.
Enter Chris Perez. The new guitarist. Chris was
a rocker. He had a heavy metal background, long
hair, very different vibe from the rest of the
band. Which probably didn't help with Abraham.
Oh, not at all. But he was a phenomenal guitarist.
And the chemistry with Selena was, by all accounts,
immediate. Her brother AB and Chris actually
wrote the Coca -Cola jingle for the band together,
so they were collaborating creatively from the
start. And then there's the famous Pizza Hut
moment. It's become part of the lore. They were
at a Pizza Hut, of all places, and that's where
they finally confessed they had feelings for
each other. But hanging over this whole secret
romance was the shadow of Abraham. Abraham was...
Well, incredibly protective is one way to put
it. But it was more than just being a protective
dad, right? There was a real cultural anxiety
there for him. Yes. The sources say Abraham feared
Chris was a Matista. That was his big fear. In
that cultural context, he was terrified that
Chris would marry Selena and then demand that
she stop singing and become a housewife. He saw
Chris as a threat to her career. A threat to
her freedom, and let's be honest, a threat to
the entire family business that he had built
from nothing. So when Selena's sister, Suzette,
caught them flirting and tipped off Abraham...
It went nuclear. You fired him on the spot. Called
him a cancer in my family, fired him, stopped
the bus and literally left him on the side of
the road. And he threatened to disband the entire
group if Selena kept seeing him. An impossible
situation for her. Totally. So they did the only
thing two young people in love would do in that
situation. They kept seeing each other in secret
and then they eloped. April 2nd, 1992. They just
went to the courthouse. They figured forgiveness
was easier to get them permission. Their logic
was, if they were legally married, what could
Abraham do? He couldn't stop it then. But the
media found out almost instantly. Within hours.
Abraham apparently heard it on the radio before
they even had a chance to tell him. It was a
very tense standoff for a while. But he came
around. Eventually, yeah. He realized he was
about to lose his daughter and his lead singer.
He apologized, he accepted the marriage, and
he welcomed Chris back into the band. And that
stability... finally having her personal life
settled, it seems like it set the stage for 1994,
which was really her peak year, the year of Amor
Prohibido. If you're looking for the moment that
Tejano music broke through the glass ceiling
into the mainstream consciousness, this is it.
Amor Prohibido was released in March 1994. It
shifted the culture. It took Tejano out of this
regional niche. And brought it to a younger,
wider, more diverse audience. The track list
is just insane. Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, No Me Queda
Mas, the title track, Fotos y Recuerdos. It's
hit after hit. Bidi Bidi Bom Bom is such a perfect
example of that evolution we were talking about.
It's not Tejano. It's not pop. It's not reggae.
It's all of them at once. It is. And the story
behind it is that it started as just a soundcheck
improvisation, just nonsense words and a fun
rhythm. And A .B. heard it and molded it into
this reggae cumbia pop fusion masterpiece. And
the album was huge. It became one of the best
selling Latin albums in the U .S. and it broke
barriers in places like Puerto Rico and Central
America, where Tejano music usually didn't travel.
She was a phenomenon. And by 1994, she's a mogul.
She's not just singing, she's building an empire.
She opened her two boutiques, Selena, etc. One
in Corpus Christi, one in San Antonio. And these
weren't just like... Little clothing stores?
Oh, no. They were full -service beauty salons.
She was designing the clothes herself. She was
deeply involved. And they were wildly profitable.
Hispanic Business Magazine estimated she was
earning over $5 million just from those ventures.
Which brings us to the fashion. It was such a
huge part of her brand. The bust years, the high
-waisted pants, the purple jumpsuit. The purple
jumpsuit from the Astrodome. Iconic. She was
often called the Mexican Madonna because of the
bust years. But the context was so different.
In the 90s, the mainstream fashion ideal was
heroin chic. Kate Moss, super thin, grunge. And
Selena was unapologetically curvy. She embraced
her body type. And for millions of Latinas, seeing
a body that looked like theirs being celebrated
on stage like that, it was revolutionary. It
was a huge confidence boost. A whole generation.
She was controversial for some, though. Oh, definitely.
More conservative parents thought her outfits
were too provocative. And it's noted that Selena
actually became an inactive Jehovah's Witness
because her stage clothing clashed with the faith's
modesty standards. But she owned her image. It
was her choice. Okay, so let's set the scene.
It's early 1995. She has massive hits, profitable
boutiques, a happy marriage. She's in the studio
actively recording the English language crossover
album that everyone expects will make her the
biggest star in the world. The dream is about
to become a reality. And because the boutiques
are expanding so fast, she needs help managing
them. She can't do it all herself. And this is
where the story turns dark. This is where the
family brings in Yolanda Saldivar. Yolanda started
as just a fan, right? An obsessed fan, basically.
Yeah, she was a registered nurse from San Antonio
who approached Abraham repeatedly, begging him
to let her start a fan club. She was persistent.
She seemed super organized. And above all, she
seemed incredibly dedicated to Selena. So he
let her. And she became president of the fan
club. And she became a close friend to Selena.
She integrated herself into the family's inner
circle. So when the boutiques got too big for
Selena to handle day to day, promoting Yolanda
seemed like a natural choice. In early 1994,
she was made the manager of the boutiques. And
almost immediately, the red flag started going
up. Staff members started complaining about her.
It was classic manipulative behavior from what
the sources describe. She was firing people she
didn't like. She was creating a wedge between
Selena and her longtime. staff. Her behavior
was described as erratic, possessive, controlling.
People tried to warn Selena. Multiple people,
her cousin, some of the fashion designers, even
Abraham, who was usually the suspicious one,
specifically warned her, telling her to be careful
with Yolanda. But Selena dismissed it. She did.
She was a naturally trusting person and she knew
her father was often suspicious of outsiders.
So she kind of wrote off the complaints as just
Abraham being Abraham. She just couldn't believe
that someone who claimed to love her so much
would ever hurt her. But the betrayal wasn't
just emotional. It was financial. That's where
it all unraveled. By January of 1995, the fan
club members were getting angry. They were sending
in their membership checks and getting nothing
in return. No newsletters, no merchandise, nothing.
So Abraham stepped in to investigate. And he
found the smoking gun. He found financial discrepancies,
forged checks. Yolanda was embezzling money,
a lot of money. The initial amount they found
was over $30 ,000. So the family confronts her.
On March 9th, 1995, Abraham, Selena, and Suzette
sat Yolanda down and confronted her with the
evidence. Abraham was furious. He fired her on
the spot and banned her from having any contact
with the family. But, and this is the detail
that is so incredibly frustrating in hindsight,
Selena kept talking to her. She felt she had
to. It was a practical matter. Yolanda still
had all the bank records, all the financial statements
for the boutiques. It was tax season. Selena
needed those papers to file her taxes properly.
She thought she could just get the paperwork
and then cut ties for good. Exactly. A clean
break. She didn't realize the danger she was
in. This leads us to the final days of March
1995. Yolanda is stalling. She's not handing
over the documents. She's playing games. She
comes up with this story claiming she had been
sexually assaulted in Mexico. It was a clear
distraction tactic, a way to garner sympathy
from Selena and delay having to hand over the
incriminating bank records. And on the morning
of March 31st, Selena, being the person she was,
actually took Yolanda to a medical clinic to
get checked out. Right. And the nurse there,
a woman named Carla Anthony, noted a lot of inconsistencies
in Yolanda's story. She pointed out that since
the assault allegedly happened in Mexico, the
exam should be handled differently, probably
in San Antonio. It was clear Yolanda's story
just wasn't adding up. They leave the clinic
and they go back to the motel where Yolanda is
staying. The day's in in Corpus Christi, room
158. It was just before noon, around 11 .48 a
.m. Inside that room, Selena finally demanded
the financial papers. The final confrontation.
An argument started. As Selena turned to leave
the room, Yolanda pulled a .38 caliber revolver
from her purse. And she shot her in the back.
One shot. It entered her right lower shoulder.
And this is the medical tragedy of it all. The
bullet severed the subclavian artery. That's
a massive blood vessel. It's one of the main
arteries that comes directly off the heart. The
blood loss would have been catastrophic and almost
instantaneous. But Selena didn't die instantly.
She ran. My God, she ran 392 feet. 392 feet.
From that room, across the parking lot, all the
way to the motel lobby, leaving a trail of blood
the entire way. She burst into the lobby, terrified,
and collapsed at the front desk. And even in
that state, she had the presence of mind to identify
her killer. With her last bit of consciousness,
she managed to tell the clerk two things. Yolanda.
Room 158. She made sure justice would be done
before she lost consciousness for the last time.
The paramedics arrived quickly, but the damage
was done. She was clinically brain dead by the
time she reached the hospital at 12 p .m. The
trauma surgeon, Dr. Louis Elkins, performed what
they call heroic efforts. They literally opened
her chest cavity. They massaged her heart by
hand. They pumped liters and liters of blood
into her system. But it was too late. The artery
was completely severed. There was no way to maintain
blood pressure. She was pronounced dead at 1
.15 p .m. She was 23 years old. Just 23. Meanwhile,
back at the Days Inn. The situation hadn't ended.
No, it had turned into a massive standoff. Yolanda
had gotten into her pickup truck in the parking
lot, and she was holding the gun to her own head.
For nine and a half hours, she held the police
and the FBI at bay, threatening suicide. The
whole city was on lockdown. It was a media circus.
She was talking to negotiators on a cell phone.
She finally surrendered later that night. The
public reaction to this news? I don't think we
can overstate it. It was a seismic shock. You
really do have to compare it to the deaths of
John Lennon or Elvis or JFK for the Latino community,
especially in Texas. The world simply stopped.
People were weeping in the streets. There were
spontaneous vigils everywhere. But the mainstream
American media was. A bit confused at first.
I remember Tom Brokaw on NBC having to sort of
explain who she was. Right. He used the phrase
the Mexican Madonna just to give his largely
white audience a frame of reference. But some
outlets got it. The New York Times understood
the gravity. They ran the story on their front
page for two days straight. And the funeral was
massive. Tens of thousands of people. The estimates
range from 30 ,000 to 40 ,000 fans who came to
the viewing to file past her casket. And tragically,
the family made the decision to have an open
casket viewing. Why did they do that? Because
of the horrible rumors that were already flying
around. Rumors that she wasn't really dead, that
it was a publicity stunt, or that the coffin
was empty. Abraham felt he had to prove to the
fans that she was really gone. It was just a
heartbreaking decision to have to make. There's
a grim coincidence regarding that day, too, in
the notes. Yeah. On the very same day as her
funeral in Corpus Christi, there was another
workplace shooting in the city where a disgruntled
employee killed five people. In any other circumstance,
that would have been the biggest national news
story of the day. But it was completely buried.
Almost completely buried by the overwhelming
coverage of Selena's funeral. Speaking of coverage,
this brings us to a really pivotal moment in
the American publishing industry. It centers
on People magazine. This is a business legend.
The editors at People in New York saw this huge
outpouring of grief and decided, kind of on a
whim, to print a commemorative issue dedicated
to Selena. They figured it would sell well in
Texas and maybe California. They had no idea
what was coming. They were not prepared. It sold
out instantly. Everywhere. We're talking nearly
one million copies. It was the first time in
the entire history of People magazine that a
single issue had completely sold out at the newsstand.
The executives in New York finally had their
aha moment. A huge one. They realized they had
been ignoring a massive, passionate, and lucrative
demographic. They realized the Hispanic market
in the U .S. had immense purchasing power and
a deep hunger for representation. And that one
issue led directly to... The creation of People
en Español. That magazine exists today because
the Selena commemorative issue proved there was
a giant untapped market for it. Of course, in
the midst of all this grief, there were culture
wars. We have to discuss the Howard Stern incident.
Ugh. This was just ugly. Howard Stern was at
the absolute height of his shock jock era. And
just days after her murder, he went on air and
mocked her, mocked the mourners and played her
music with gunshot sound effects layered over
the tracks. The quotes from that show are pretty
vile. They're awful. He said Alvin and the Chipmunks
have more soul and Spanish people have the worst
taste in music. He was tapping into a really
deep, ugly vein of racism and dismissal of Latino
culture. But the backlash was swift. Organized
and effective. It was. The League of United Latin
American Citizens, LULAC, organized a boycott.
They went after his advertisers. Sears pulled
their ads. McDonald's pulled their ads. It got
so heated that a judge in South Texas actually
issued a warrant for Stern's arrest for disorderly
conduct. That couldn't have been legally sound.
It was legally dubious at best, but it was symbolic
of the absolute rage in Texas. Stern eventually
issued a statement in Spanish saying he didn't
mean to cause anguish, but it really highlighted
this. massive divide between mainstream shock
culture and the Latino community's genuine grief.
Politics got involved, too. George W. Bush was
the governor of Texas at the time. He was. And
he declared April 16th, her birthday, as Selena
Day in Texas. This was just a few weeks after
the murder. And even that, a simple proclamation
of mourning, drew backlash. It did. Some European
Americans wrote letters to the editor complaining,
asking why she deserved a special day. Her birthday
happened to fall near Easter that year, and people
argued it was disrespectful to the holiday. But
the Mexican -American community defended it fiercely.
It became this proxy war for validation, a way
of saying, our heroes matter just as much as
yours. And finally, on the controversies, there's
the issue of the gun itself. Yeah, years later,
in 2002, a judge ordered the revolver that was
used in the murder to be destroyed. cut up into
pieces and thrown into Corpus Christi Bay. And
historians were upset about that. They were.
Historians and museum curators argued that, as
tragic as it was, that gun was a significant
historical artifact, that it belonged in a museum
as part of the story. But the court decided to
essentially erase it from history. So now we
have to look at the legacy. Because typically,
after a tragedy like this, posthumous fame fades
after a while. With Selena, it just exploded.
And that brings us to Dreaming of You. This was
the English language crossover album she was
working on when she died. It was released in
July 1995, just a few months after the murder.
The numbers are just staggering. On its first
day of release, it sold 175 ,000 copies. In its
first week, 331 ,000. It debuted at number one
on the Billboard 200 chart. She was the first
Hispanic artist to ever do that. And she achieved
a record that I think still stands out. Five
of her albums were on the chart at the same time.
She was the first female artist in history to
have five albums on the Billboard 200 simultaneously.
Dreaming of You went on to sell over 3 .5 million
units in the U .S. alone. To this day, it's the
best -selling Latin album of all time in the
United States. The terrible irony, of course,
is that she finally achieved that massive crossover
dream. But she wasn't there to see it. She conquered
the English market in death. And then came the
movie. For a whole generation of people, General
Lopez is Selena. That 1997 biopic was absolutely
crucial. It was a major Warner Bros. production.
It's interesting. Salma Hayek was actually the
first choice for the role. Oh, I didn't know
that. Yeah, but she turned it down. She felt
it was still too soon after the murder, too raw.
So they held massive casting calls, and they
found Jennifer Lopez, who was mostly known as
a dancer from New York at the time. And there
was a backlash to that casting, too, initially.
Huge backlash. People protested because J -Lo
is Puerto Rican, not Mexican -American. They
felt she wouldn't understand the specific culture,
the nuances of the Tejano world. But her performance
silenced everyone. It was a star -making performance.
It launched Jennifer Lopez into superstardom.
But more importantly, it cemented Selena's story
in the global consciousness for a new generation.
And the commercial viability of the Selena brand,
it just hasn't slowed down. In 2016, MM Cosmetics
released a collection. And that was driven entirely
by an online fan petition that got hundreds of
thousands of signatures. And when it finally
launched, it became the best -selling celebrity
line in the entire history of MM Cosmetics. There's
Latin history, all history. All of cosmetic history.
It sold out in minutes. The demand was insane.
And we've seen the Google Doodle, the Netflix
series in 2020, the posthumous Lifetime Achievement
Grammy in 2021. She just received the National
Medal of Arts. She is, without a doubt, more
famous and more influential now than she was
even when she was alive. But I want to end on
a really provocative thought that I found in
our research. We always talk about how she opened
the doors for the Latin explosion of the late
90s for Ricky Martin, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez
and Ricky Glacius. And she undoubtedly did. She
proved to the major labels that the market existed
and was profitable. But there's a quote here
from John Lanner, who was the Latin music editor
for Billboard magazine at the time. And it really
just stops you in your tracks. He said the Tejano
market died with her. Wow. It's a devastating
observation, but if you look at the data, he's
kind of right. Tejano music, that specific genre
of polka fusion from Texas, it peaked with Selena.
After she died, the genre's mainstream popularity
receded. It never became the global force that,
say, reggaeton is today. So in a way, she wasn't
just the queen of the genre. She was the load
-bearing wall holding the whole thing up. Exactly.
Without her charisma, her star power, and her
brother's ability to modernize the sound, the
genre just couldn't sustain that level of mainstream
interest. It retreated back to being a regional
niche. It forces you to ask that big what if.
If she had lived, if she had personally led that
Latin explosion instead of just being its symbolic
martyr, would we all be listening to Tejano today
the way we listen to Bad Bunny? Or was she just
a singular, unrepeatable anomaly? It's the tragic,
unanswerable question. It makes you realize the
fragility of culture sometimes. That one person,
the right person at the right time, can hold
up an entire industry. And when that person is
gone, the silence can be deafening. And that
is where we leave it today. A story of incredible
triumph, devastating loss, and the legacy that
literally reshapes the world. Thanks for diving
in with us. Thank you.