Hello and welcome to portrait in a minute.
I'm Alina Collins Maldonado and I'm head of the education department at Gala Hispanic theater in Washington DC.
As a Mexican American, I have been listening to the singer known as Selena all of my life.
she has been one of my inspirations in pursuing a career in the arts
but Selena's story, so hopeful at its inception is ultimately a tragic one.
She was born in 1971 into a musical family that made its living by playing and
singing tejano music
at weddings and in cantinas and honky tonks.
With their father Abraham as agent and manager, Selena and her siblings took to the road in a beat-up
bus they named Big Bertha
their band was called Selena y Los Dinos or Selena and the boys.
Selena's father recognized her talents early.
According to him, by the time she was 6
her timing and her pitch were perfect.
When she was 8, she recorded her first song, a country song sung in Spanish
although Selena, a Texan, didn't speak Spanish
but that didn't stop her. She learned Spanish phonetically at first, then later took lessons.
At age 13, she recorded her first album
At fifteen, she won the 1987 Tejano Music Award
for Best Female Vocalist and performer of the year.
In 1989, the band signed with EMI records Latin division
and by 1995, Selena's albums had sold a total of 3 million copies
including Selena Live, which won her a Grammy Award
for best Mexican American album.
Her song Bidi Bidi Bom Bom
won song of the year at the 1995 Tejano Music Awards ceremonies
Out of the 15 awards presented that year, Selena won 5 including Album of the Year and Tejano crossover song.
Selena seemed destined to become the crossover artist
who would rival Gloria Estefan, but helas it was not to be.
On Friday March 31st, 1995 at 1:05 p.m,
in Corpus Christi Texas, Selena was pronounced dead just weeks before her 24th birthday.
She had been shot and killed by her obsessed fan club president
From the moment the news became known, Latinos everywhere
plunged into grief. When then governor George W Bush declared her
birthday April 16th as Selena day in the State of Texas
The rest of the country wondered who was this girl known by only one name, what was her claim to fame,
Tejanos are Mexican Americans who were born or lived in Texas.
Selena's family had lived and worked in South Texas in the heart of Tejano music country for at least 100 years.
Tejano music is a form of folk music called conjunto,
which describes the blending of instruments characteristic of the music played in the Old West.
The German colonist and the vaqueros blended sounds of the accordion
with instruments from Mexico, yielding a music much like the European Polka
but with a sound uniquely its own. Selena is credited with helping to
keep that music alive
Today, many Americans will remember Selena because of the 1997 film of the same name
starring Jennifer lopez.
Latinos, however, will remember her as the queen of Tejano music
someone who always remains one of the people.
To quote one writer, her greatest gift was that her talents,
beauty and success empowered all Hispanics.
This has been portrait in a minute.