Latest news with #SelenayLosDinos
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Selena Y Los Dinos' Documentary Feature Acquired By Netflix
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is going to bring 'Bidi Bidi Bom Bom' into the homes of Selena Quintanilla fans all over the world as the streamer acquires the rights to the documentary feature Selena y Los Dinos, directed by Isabel Castro. The film will be released globally on Netflix later this winter. The news arrives following a late February story from Deadline's Editor-in-Chief of Film, Mike Fleming, Jr., which revealed the streamer was working on a $6M to $7M deal to acquire the title. He said the deal 'puts a different face on the recently completed Sundance fest, because that is a high amount for a documentary.' 'Selena y Los Dinos became so popular that when Sundance put it on its portal for industry to watch, the film had to be taken down so quickly because fervent fans were getting hold of clips and posting them,' he added. More from Deadline Netflix Unveils Premiere Date, First-Look Photos For Romance 'My Oxford Year' Starring Sofia Carson & Corey Mylchreest Everything We Know About 'Nobody Wants This' Season 2 So Far Lena Dunham's 'Too Much' Comedy Series Gets Netflix Premiere Date; First Look The project follows Quintanilla — the 'Queen of Tejano Music' — and her family band, Selena y Los Dinos, which rose from performing at quinceañeras to selling out stadium tours. The celebration of her life and legacy is chronicled through never-before-seen footage from the family's personal archive. The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling. The accolade was followed by Audience Awards at both SXSW and Miami Film Festivals. 'We are so excited to finally share that our documentary Selena y Los Dinos is coming to Netflix! Grateful to have a platform that helps bring Selena's story to fans around the world,' shared Quintanilla's sister, Suzette Quintanilla, who also executive produced the doc, in a statement to Deadline. Added director Castro, 'It is an absolute honor to partner with Netflix, who will bring Selena y Los Dinos to a worldwide audience. Selena's legacy is so meaningful and continues to inspire millions. As a filmmaker, I wanted to honor her extraordinary rise and enduring legacy, while also giving a window into her life behind the stage. Through personal archive and intimate interviews with her family, the film reveals new dimensions of her journey that have never been seen before. I am deeply grateful to her family for their trust and support throughout this journey, and I can't wait for a global audience to experience the magic, heart, and community that Selena gave to all of us.' At 23 years old, Selena Quintanilla's life was cut short in 1995, and her death deeply shook the Latino community. Her musical legacy remains extremely popular today. In addition to Suzette Quintanilla, their brother AB Quintanilla III, and Michele Anthony, executive produced Selena y Los Dinos. Polygram Entertainment, Amsi Entertainment, and Motto Pictures produced the title. Producers include Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, J. Daniel Torres, David Blackman, and Simran Singh. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About The 'Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping' Movie So Far TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Book-To-Movie Adaptations Coming Out In 2025
Los Angeles Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Award-winning doc ‘Selena y Los Dinos' has been acquired by Netflix
'Selena y Los Dinos,' the latest documentary film about the life of Tejano music icon Selena Quintanilla, has been acquired by Netflix. The film is currently scheduled to begin streaming in winter 2025. The movie, directed by Isabel Castro, features original VHS footage taken by Selena's older sister, Suzette, and is interspersed with present-day interviews with family and friends. Netflix announced its acquisition in a Tuesday press release. 'Through personal archive and intimate interviews with her family, the film reveals new dimensions of her journey that have never been seen before,' Castro shared in the release. 'I am deeply grateful to her family for their trust and support throughout this journey, and I can't wait for a global audience to experience the magic, heart and community that Selena gave to all of us.' Suzette also shared her enthusiasm about the scope of the partnership with Netflix in the Tuesday announcement, stating, 'Grateful to have a platform that helps bring Selena's story to fans around the world.' This is not the first time that the Quintanilla family has collaborated with the streaming giant. They worked with Netflix to help create 'Selena: The Series' — a scripted retelling of Selena's childhood, rise to fame and death starring Christian Serratos as the Texas singer. It was after working as an executive producer on the Netflix series that Suzette consulted her lawyer about making her own documentary. 'There's some things that you just want to hold on to and not share with everyone,' Suzette said at the documentary's 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere. 'I was always taking the pictures, always with the camera. And look how crazy it is, that I'm sharing it with all of you so many years later.' The documentary surfaces footage from performances in which Selena subverts the idea of the well-manicured image that the Quintanilla family has constantly put out of the singer in the 30 years since her death. It also captures, in real time, the evolution of a bold new identity growing among Latino youth in the 1980s, encapsulated in Los Dinos' cultural hybridity. The film was awarded with a special jury prize for archival storytelling at the renowned movie gathering at Sundance. The jury made note of how the feature 'transported us to a specific time and place, evoking themes of family, heritage, love and adolescence.' So badly were people clamoring to view the movie that the organizers of Sundance pulled it from its online platform. The film had fallen victim to a number of copyright infringements as eager fans were uploading clips from it to social media platforms. This was the first time that Sundance had removed a feature during the festival. De Los assistant editor Suzy Exposito and Times staff writer Mark Olsen contributed to this report.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Selena y Los PhDinos: How the singer's legacy has helped shape academia
Sitting in front of a wall covered in drawings of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Nathian Rodriguez remembers hearing the news of Selena's death at his family's home in the small town of Balmorhea, Texas. "I remember I was trying to figure out, 'How am I going to find out this information?' We only had 13 channels and Univision was one of them, but it wasn't really covering it," Rodriguez said. "The nearest Tejano radio station was Midland-Odessa, which was about a two-hour drive from us." In order to get a signal to hear the news, he decided to take matters into his own hands — literally. "And so I remember taking the coaxial cable out of the wall, then I would get the radio and I'd get the antenna, and I'd touch them together," he said. "So the coaxial cable would give it enough power to pick up this station from Midland-Odessa, so I could hear [the news] live as it was happening." Read more: In 'Selena y Los Dinos,' we see the Tejano queen through the eyes of her sister Nearly 25 years after his MacGyver-esque efforts, he found himself once again centering part of his life around the Tejano icon, but this time in the classroom. Now serving as an associate director and associate professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University, Rodriguez has been teaching a college course about Selena since 2020. With "Selena and Latinx Media Representation," as the class is officially known, he is among the growing number of higher education instructors at universities with sizable Latinx populations who are using the "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" singer's life and legacy as an entry point to explore a plethora of topics in Latinx/Chicanx culture. "When I created this course, I thought, 'Well, this is perfect,'" Rodriguez said. "I can think of an example for every single thing that I know about Selena that can relate back to the global flow of music, relate back to the issues of machismo and marianismo, the issues about immigration, the issues about women and how they're represented and sexualized and hyper-sexualized. There's ways that I can also relate it back to language and code-switching." But what is it about Selena specifically that raises her to the level of scrutiny she has acquired? Sonya Alemán — an associate professor of the Mexican American studies program in the race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality studies department at the University of Texas at San Antonio — surmised that it is, in part, because Selena remains among the few examples of a Latinx star achieving recognition across a wide swath of society. "She still is the one person in the pop cultural world, in the mainstream, that [Latinx people] can look at that reflects us, that we identify with, that tells our story," Alemán said. "She's one of the few that has been allowed in. And so we have to keep coming back to her if we want to have any kind of representation, to feel seen in that way." Read more: Selena's killer is denied parole 30 years after shooting Latin superstar Alemán got the idea to launch her course on Selena at UTSA in fall 2020 after seeing similar courses about music megastars pop up at her university and throughout the country. "UTSA offered a course for two semesters on Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' album and it was very successful. It had a lot of media attention and students were eager to get into that class." she said. "Over the course of my career, I've seen courses on Harry Potter ... I've seen courses on Prince. In San Marcos, which is just about 45 miles north of San Antonio, there's a course on Taylor Swift. There's a seminar right now at Trinity University [in San Antonio] on Taylor Swift." What she really hopes is for her students to be able to learn about themselves and see their own cultural touchstones reflected in Selena's Mexican American identity. "So as much as we talk about her, we are also talking about my students' lives and how they experience the world with that identity," Alemán noted. "When you can create an educational space that validates values and centers that history and those ways of knowing students have a different level of engagement of learning than they have ever had in another course ... and it's just this thirst that they didn't even know they had to value their own histories and the knowledge in their community." The centerpiece assignment for Alemán's course functions to directly connect students with their community through a series of interviews with a multigenerational selection of Selena fans. One interview must be with a first-generation fan — someone who was alive while Selena was — and two interviews must be conducted with second-generation fans, who were born after the "Si Una Vez" artist's death. Read more: 'An unfinished masterpiece': Revisiting Selena's landmark crossover album, 'Dreaming of You,' at 25 Each of her students is tasked with examining their interviews to look for patterns, differences and similarities among the conversations. They are then grouped with two other peers in their class, asked to critically analyze one another's interviews and create a presentation. That newly discovered information about Selena fans helps to serve as data points that advance Alemán's class beyond the somewhat dated media covered in her syllabus. "We have learned a whole lot about the second-generation set of Selena fans and that knowledge doesn't exist in the scholarly archive that we use as our course material because they were primarily writing about the first decade and a half after her death," she explained. Over the course of the four semesters that she's taught the class, Alemán's students have created an impressive database from their roughly 300 self-conducted interviews. "It's been incredible to use this course as a way to validate the knowledge that exists in our communities about who [Selena] is and why she matters and to help students see themselves as scholars gathering and making sense of that information," Alemán said. Read more: 'Selena' turns 25: Jennifer Lopez celebrates 'the magic that is this movie' Selena's image and legacy has been used for people to explore more parts of their identity beyond ethnic and cultural ties, as pointed out by Anita Tijerina Revilla, who serves as the department chair and professor of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) studies at Cal State L.A. One way she incorporates Selena into her courses is by looking at the Tejano artist's impact on the LGBTQ+ community. Revilla is an expert in Jotería studies, a field of study that examines the lives and histories of queer and gender nonconforming Latinx/Chicanx people. The name of the academic fields serves as an act of reclamation of derogatory terms that have been hurled at queer Latinx folks for decades. "You can go to any nightclub, see a drag show and expect to see Selena represented," Revilla said. "For queer people, I think it's a sense of belonging, a sense of seeing themselves in this woman with her pride in herself as a woman, as a person who is very performance-based ... so there's lots of people who can resonate with her." As someone who identifies as queer, Rodriguez also dedicates a considerable amount of time in his course to Selena's ties to LGBTQ+ culture. "We look at drag queens and how Selena has become very much this cultural icon for drag queens and for gay men. We look at this idea of the diva and how gay men — whether you're Mexican American or whatever — what you had in the past to look up to were women," Rodriguez said. Read more: Selena's music and warmth draw thousands to Corpus Christi 24 years after her death He also pointed to the song "Amor Prohibido" as having queer undertones with its theme of sharing a love that society isn't willing to accept. But no academic conversation about Selena would be complete without discussing the gender dynamics at play with the purple jumpsuit-wearing pop star. Jose Anguiano, a professor of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) studies at Cal State L.A., commented on how the "Dreaming of You" singer's life embodied a "quintessential" Chicana story. "I think a lot of Chicanas relate to the idea of not quite being accepted in the mainstream or having these different expectations put upon you," Anguiano said of the struggle of being caught between two cultures. "[Selena had] a conservative dad, right? A lot of Chicanos, I think, grew up with a very socially, sexually conservative dad." Read more: Selena's family says decision to deny her killer parole 'reaffirms that justice continues to stand' Even after her death, the Quintanilla patriarch has continued to control his daughter's image. "He's tried to shape as best he can and control the narrative around Selena," Anguiano said. "He's tried to be the one who gets to tell her story and the family story through the TV show [and movie]." Rodriguez added to this theme of control of Selena's image and the gendered implications of it all. "When we see [family-authorized Selena media], it's a very controlled narrative that really feeds into this marianismo idea of what a woman is supposed to be. Yes, she was curvaceous and she was bustier and she broke down barriers, but she was also very chaste," Rodriguez said. Marianismo refers to a traditional and conservative archetype used to describe women from Latin America and its diaspora that's modeled after the Virgin Mary. Read more: From the Archives: Selena was on brink of major crossover, 'up there with the Janets and the Madonnas' But despite the Quintanilla family's best efforts, it's Selena's loyal fans who have given the music idol ever-growing layers of complexity and have crafted a continuously morphing image of Selena and what she represents in society. "When [someone] becomes a community folklore hero, it's up to the community and the fandom to really take control of how we remember them, and they become in some ways a blank canvas to be able to project onto them particular ideas," Anguiano said. "It's incredible that 30 years later we're still talking about her life and it continues to still be significant in the past and for today's Chicanos and Chicanas." Get our Latinx Files newsletter for stories that capture the complexity of our communities. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
CNN
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
On the 30th anniversary of Selena's death, her killer is denied parole
The powerful voice of Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is still an indelible staple in Latino households and parties nearly 30 years after her death. The grief that engulfed fans immediately after Selena's life was cut short has morphed over the years into a celebration of the cultural icon every spring on the days leading up to her April birthday. But this year, the memorial is accompanied by a sense of relief as Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who shot and killed Selena in a Texas motel room, was denied her first attempt at parole. 'Today, we are grateful that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has chosen to deny parole for Yolanda Saldívar,' the Quintanilla family and Selena's husband Chris Pérez said in a joint statement shared on their social media platforms. 'While nothing can bring Selena back, this decision reaffirms that justice continues to stand for the beautiful life that was taken from us and from millions of fans around the world far too soon,' they added. Saldívar, 64, is serving a life sentence for the singer's 1995 murder at a prison in Gatesville, Texas, about 100 miles north of Austin. In the weeks leading to the parole board's decision, some fans chatted about Saldivar's potential release while others remained focused on celebrating Selena's life and legacy — much like the singer's family. 'If I am the Selena y Los Dino fan that I say I am, I think that's the most important part. … They (Selena's family) are celebrating her life, and they're celebrating her legacy,' said Stephanie Bergara, a country and Tejano music singer-songwriter and lead singer of the Texas-based Selena tribute band Bidi Bidi Banda. Selena's parents, her sister and band members joined fans and film industry members earlier this month as 'Selena y Los Dinos,' a new documentary about the singer's life, premiered at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. Weeks earlier, the film was screened at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and won the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling. 'She's been such an inspiration, especially for Latina women like myself,' Roberta Salas, a fan who attended the screening, told CNN affiliate KEYE. 'She gave us the mentality that we can do anything.' Saldívar came into Selena's life as a fan, later becoming her fan club president and managing some of the singer's clothing boutiques. On March 31, 1995, the 'Queen of Tejano Music' — who was known by her first name — was meeting with Saldívar at a Corpus Christi motel when Saldívar shot her. They were discussing Selena's concerns that Saldívar had embezzled money from her, according to trial testimony. Selena was 23 and her first English-language album was months from release. Saldívar was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Her case was placed into parole review in recent months based on the amount of time she has served in prison, which began when she was first detained, and because the offense for which she was convicted allowed for parole consideration, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Saldívar was denied parole Thursday after her case was reviewed by a three-member panel, according to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. 'After a thorough consideration of all available information, which included any confidential interviews conducted, it was the parole panel's determination to deny parole to Yolanda Saldivar and set her next parole review for March 2030,' the board said in a statement. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles says it considers the offense, 'medical and psychological history, and how the offender has adjusted and behaved in prison.' But the process is not 'cut and dry;' other factors such as public outcry as well as the offender's remorse and accountability are also considered in the decision, said Helen Anne Gaebler, a senior research attorney for the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law at The University of Texas School of Law. 'The parole process — it's not cut and dry. It's very individual. It's very much individually based, and the circumstances play a large role,' Gaebler said. In her experience representing women in the parole review process in Central Texas, Gaebler said she believes there's often a reliance 'on historical factors and not enough attention or focus put on present-day and future-looking factors.' 'For example, we will oftentimes have individuals denied parole over and over because of the nature of the offense. That's one of the bases on which parole can be denied. But that's a static factor that's never going to change,' Gaebler said. In Saldívar's case, the parole board cited the nature of the offense as the reason for their denial. 'The record indicates that the instant offense has elements of brutality, violence, assaultive behavior or conscious selection of victim's vulnerability indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others, such that the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety,' the parole board said in a statement. In Texas, tens of thousands of cases are reviewed for parole every year, in addition to pardons, medical release requests and revocation of parole. In 2023, 64,785 cases were considered for parole and about 34% were approved, according to an annual statistical report from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Decades after her murder, Selena endures as an icon for her signature looks; a unique sound that blended Tejano, dance-pop and R&B and for putting the Mexican-American experience in the spotlight. Bergara, the tribute band singer, was only 8 when Selena was killed and never got the chance to see her live. Yet the image of Selena on stage, captivating large crowds, is etched into her memory. 'She was the first person who I ever saw on television who looked like she could be related to me,' Bergara said. 'She was immediately so relatable to me and so relatable to people across the world now.' The Selena tribute band, which originally intended to put on a one-time performance, has now toured major cities across the country for more than a decade and seen how the singer's legacy is being passed on through generations. 'We play shows all the time where moms who are my age will show up, and their daughters will show up, and they're dressed like Selena, and they love Selena just as much as their moms did,' Bergara said. Selena continues to captivate audiences, evidenced by her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame awarded in 2018, a Netflix miniseries inspired by her life in 2020, and the launch of a second MAC Cosmetics collection inspired by her the same year. She was also posthumously awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2023 by former President Joe Biden, the highest award given to artists by the federal government. In Corpus Christi, where Selena and her family lived, the iconic singer is memorialized in numerous ways. Fans can visit the Mirador de la Flor memorial and its life-size bronze statue centerpiece, the Selena Museum and the city's auditorium, which was renamed in her memory. Sonya M. Alemán, a professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio, has been teaching a course since 2020 focused on Selena and her lasting impact on society. Her students have interviewed hundreds of Selena fans and learned why she remains a cultural symbol despite generational differences. 'Her legacy has not waned. If anything, it's strengthening,' Alemán said. For those who lived through Selena's life and death, their connection to the singer is clearly defined — they attended concerts and signings, and looked up to her as a trailblazer and a proud Tejana, Aleman explained. For younger fans, many of whom were born at the turn of the century, Selena's music means home. Her songs were a staple in family functions — quinceañeras, carne asadas and family gatherings. 'When they think of Selena, they think of home, they think of family,' Alemán said. For Alemán, Selena's lasting legacy is a testament to the 'resounding and constant need not just to uplift her, but to see ourselves.' 'She's still beloved and she's still a story and person that people want to continue to remember and keep her legacy alive,' Alemán said. 'I also think that it means that the community that she belonged to, that she identified with, is still thirsty for representation.' To fans like Bergara, the celebration of Selena's life that occurs every year surrounding her April 16 birthday should not be overshadowed by developments in Saldívar's case. 'I don't want to give her any attention,' Bergara said. 'I just don't think it's worth it, and what we should be focusing on is 30 years of Selena, 30 years of her iconic life being celebrated.' The Quintanilla family and her husband said after Saldívar's parole was denied that Selena 'lived with joy, gave selflessly, and continues to uplift generations with her voice and her spirit' and called on fans to remember that. 'We will continue to celebrate Selena's life — not the tragedy that took her from us — and we ask that all who cherish her do the same,' they said.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
On the 30th anniversary of Selena's death, her killer is denied parole
The powerful voice of Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is still an indelible staple in Latino households and parties nearly 30 years after her death. The grief that engulfed fans immediately after Selena's life was cut short has morphed over the years into a celebration of the cultural icon every spring on the days leading up to her April birthday. But this year, the memorial is accompanied by a sense of relief as Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who shot and killed Selena in a Texas motel room, was denied her first attempt at parole. 'Today, we are grateful that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has chosen to deny parole for Yolanda Saldívar,' the Quintanilla family and Selena's husband Chris Pérez said in a joint statement shared on their social media platforms. 'While nothing can bring Selena back, this decision reaffirms that justice continues to stand for the beautiful life that was taken from us and from millions of fans around the world far too soon,' they added. Saldívar, 64, is serving a life sentence for the singer's 1995 murder at a prison in Gatesville, Texas, about 100 miles north of Austin. In the weeks leading to the parole board's decision, some fans chatted about Saldivar's potential release while others remained focused on celebrating Selena's life and legacy — much like the singer's family. 'If I am the Selena y Los Dino fan that I say I am, I think that's the most important part. … They (Selena's family) are celebrating her life, and they're celebrating her legacy,' said Stephanie Bergara, a country and Tejano music singer-songwriter and lead singer of the Texas-based Selena tribute band Bidi Bidi Banda. Selena's parents, her sister and band members joined fans and film industry members earlier this month as 'Selena y Los Dinos,' a new documentary about the singer's life, premiered at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. Weeks earlier, the film was screened at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and won the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling. 'She's been such an inspiration, especially for Latina women like myself,' Roberta Salas, a fan who attended the screening, told CNN affiliate KEYE. 'She gave us the mentality that we can do anything.' Saldívar came into Selena's life as a fan, later becoming her fan club president and managing some of the singer's clothing boutiques. On March 31, 1995, the 'Queen of Tejano Music' — who was known by her first name — was meeting with Saldívar at a Corpus Christi motel when Saldívar shot her. They were discussing Selena's concerns that Saldívar had embezzled money from her, according to trial testimony. Selena was 23 and her first English-language album was months from release. Saldívar was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Her case was placed into parole review in recent months based on the amount of time she has served in prison, which began when she was first detained, and because the offense for which she was convicted allowed for parole consideration, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Saldívar was denied parole Thursday after her case was reviewed by a three-member panel, according to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. 'After a thorough consideration of all available information, which included any confidential interviews conducted, it was the parole panel's determination to deny parole to Yolanda Saldivar and set her next parole review for March 2030,' the board said in a statement. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles says it considers the offense, 'medical and psychological history, and how the offender has adjusted and behaved in prison.' But the process is not 'cut and dry;' other factors such as public outcry as well as the offender's remorse and accountability are also considered in the decision, said Helen Anne Gaebler, a senior research attorney for the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law at The University of Texas School of Law. 'The parole process — it's not cut and dry. It's very individual. It's very much individually based, and the circumstances play a large role,' Gaebler said. In her experience representing women in the parole review process in Central Texas, Gaebler said she believes there's often a reliance 'on historical factors and not enough attention or focus put on present-day and future-looking factors.' 'For example, we will oftentimes have individuals denied parole over and over because of the nature of the offense. That's one of the bases on which parole can be denied. But that's a static factor that's never going to change,' Gaebler said. In Saldívar's case, the parole board cited the nature of the offense as the reason for their denial. 'The record indicates that the instant offense has elements of brutality, violence, assaultive behavior or conscious selection of victim's vulnerability indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others, such that the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety,' the parole board said in a statement. In Texas, tens of thousands of cases are reviewed for parole every year, in addition to pardons, medical release requests and revocation of parole. In 2023, 64,785 cases were considered for parole and about 34% were approved, according to an annual statistical report from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Decades after her murder, Selena endures as an icon for her signature looks; a unique sound that blended Tejano, dance-pop and R&B and for putting the Mexican-American experience in the spotlight. Bergara, the tribute band singer, was only 8 when Selena was killed and never got the chance to see her live. Yet the image of Selena on stage, captivating large crowds, is etched into her memory. 'She was the first person who I ever saw on television who looked like she could be related to me,' Bergara said. 'She was immediately so relatable to me and so relatable to people across the world now.' The Selena tribute band, which originally intended to put on a one-time performance, has now toured major cities across the country for more than a decade and seen how the singer's legacy is being passed on through generations. 'We play shows all the time where moms who are my age will show up, and their daughters will show up, and they're dressed like Selena, and they love Selena just as much as their moms did,' Bergara said. Selena continues to captivate audiences, evidenced by her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame awarded in 2018, a Netflix miniseries inspired by her life in 2020, and the launch of a second MAC Cosmetics collection inspired by her the same year. She was also posthumously awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2023 by former President Joe Biden, the highest award given to artists by the federal government. In Corpus Christi, where Selena and her family lived, the iconic singer is memorialized in numerous ways. Fans can visit the Mirador de la Flor memorial and its life-size bronze statue centerpiece, the Selena Museum and the city's auditorium, which was renamed in her memory. Sonya M. Alemán, a professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio, has been teaching a course since 2020 focused on Selena and her lasting impact on society. Her students have interviewed hundreds of Selena fans and learned why she remains a cultural symbol despite generational differences. 'Her legacy has not waned. If anything, it's strengthening,' Alemán said. For those who lived through Selena's life and death, their connection to the singer is clearly defined — they attended concerts and signings, and looked up to her as a trailblazer and a proud Tejana, Aleman explained. For younger fans, many of whom were born at the turn of the century, Selena's music means home. Her songs were a staple in family functions — quinceañeras, carne asadas and family gatherings. 'When they think of Selena, they think of home, they think of family,' Alemán said. For Alemán, Selena's lasting legacy is a testament to the 'resounding and constant need not just to uplift her, but to see ourselves.' 'She's still beloved and she's still a story and person that people want to continue to remember and keep her legacy alive,' Alemán said. 'I also think that it means that the community that she belonged to, that she identified with, is still thirsty for representation.' To fans like Bergara, the celebration of Selena's life that occurs every year surrounding her April 16 birthday should not be overshadowed by developments in Saldívar's case. 'I don't want to give her any attention,' Bergara said. 'I just don't think it's worth it, and what we should be focusing on is 30 years of Selena, 30 years of her iconic life being celebrated.' The Quintanilla family and her husband said after Saldívar's parole was denied that Selena 'lived with joy, gave selflessly, and continues to uplift generations with her voice and her spirit' and called on fans to remember that. 'We will continue to celebrate Selena's life — not the tragedy that took her from us — and we ask that all who cherish her do the same,' they said.
