Selena

"With a positive attitude, you can be anything you want to be." - Selena

Sometimes called the Latin Madonna, Selena was an extremely popular singer among the Latino communities of the U.S. Virtually single-handedly, she revitalized and popularized the obscure Tejano genre, bringing it into the mainstream.

Born Selena Quintanilla in April of 1971, the singer grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas. From the very beginning Selena was exposed to music, as her father was a former member of the Tejano band Los Dinos. Selena began her performing career at the ripe old age of 10, with her father as manager, and Los Dinos her back up band. At 12, she was featured on Johnnie Canales's popular L.A. radio show, and recorded her first album. Her popularity continued to grow as her talent matured, and her recognition expanded beyond the Hispanic community. Among Selena's many credits are the 1987 Tejano Music Awards' Performer of the Year, a 1993 Grammy for her popular album Selena Live, and an album gone gold, Amor Prohibido.

Sadly, in 1995 Selena was shot in a Texas hotel, after firing an employee. As is always the case with great musicians whose careers are prematurely cut short, the thousands who appreciated her music can only speculate on what she would have done had her life not been ended so abruptly. Despite the short-lived nature of her career, Selena will always be remembered as a woman who profoundly influenced both Mexican-American music and mainstream American pop.

• Although all her albums were recorded in Spanish, Selena's first language was actually English. In the early recordings, she sung the Spanish lyrics phonetically with only a partial understanding of their meaning. However later in life, she began to study Spanish seriously and was fluent in the language by the time of her death.
  


• Yolanda Saldivar, the employee who murdered Selena, was the founder of the artist's fan club and the manager of her boutique in San Antonio. Selena went to meet Saldivar with the intention of firing her, after discovering that she had been embezzling money from the fan club she managed. The two women argued heatedly, and when Selena began to leave, she was shot in the back.
  


• In 1997, fellow Latina pop singer Jennifer Lopez portrayed Selena in a biographical movie titled simply Selena. This film jumpstarted Lopez's career, which has since ascended to great heights.