Max Bisantz - Who Was Selena?

On a hot day in 1993, tens of thousands of fans packed an outdoor arena in Monterrey, Mexico. The band onstage played its opening songs and the crowd began to push forward. They wanted to get closer to the person they came to see: a young singer from Texas who was known simply by her first nameSelena.

As the music played on, some fans shoved each other to get a better look. Others tried to climb onstage. The situation was getting dangerous. Selenas father yelled from backstage to get out of there now! He didnt want the crowd to hurt his daughter. Selena and her band stopped playing and ran to the wingsthe sides of the stagefor safety.

Once backstage, the band tried to find a way out of the arena. There was only one exit and the crowd was blocking it. Selenas father came up with a plan. He thought that if he spoke to the crowd, he could convince them to stop. He ran onstage and asked them to calm down. But this made the audience even louder. People started throwing cans and bottles. They were there to see Selena, not her father!

Selena understood their frustration. She told the band that she was going back onstage. She had just learned to speak Spanish and was determined to talk to the crowd herself. Everyone told her not to. They feared she could get hurt. But Selena never did what anyone expected. She trusted that her fans would listen to her.

Selena stepped back on the stage as the fans shoved and shouted. Smiling and calm, she spoke into the microphone, asking them to clmese, por favor. Calm down, please.

Thousands of fans suddenly stopped pushing to listen to the twenty-two-year-old star. The band was amazed. One by one, they came back onstage and picked up their instruments. Then, Selena began to sing. Her voice filled the air and the crowd sang along to their favorite songs. The concert was a huge success.

Selenas understanding of her fans saved the show from disaster. It also helped her become the passionate musician that the world came to love.

CHAPTER 1

Texas Girl

Selena Quintanilla (say: KIN-tah-NEE-ya) was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. It was a sunny and warm Friday in the spring. Her parents were Marcella and Abraham Jr., whom everyone called Abe. She had an older brother named Abraham III, or A.B. for short, and an older sister named Suzette. The Quintanilla family was Mexican American. Their ancestors had immigrated to the United States from Mexico to search for work and a better future.

Life was hard in Texas for people with Mexican roots, or Mexicanos (say: MEH-hee-KAH-nohs). It had been that way for over a hundred years. Before the Mexican-American War began in 1846, South Texas had been a part of Mexico. People there were free to celebrate their heritage, which combined Aztec, Mayan, and Spanish cultures.

But in 1848, the United States took control of the land above the Rio Grande. Mexicans in Texas now found themselves in American territory. White Americans, or Anglos (say: ANG-lohs), did not want them there. And Mexico itself was now divided. Southern Mexicans distanced themselves from Texas-Mexicans in the north, whom they called Tejanos (say: teh-HA-nohs), the Spanish word for Texan.

Texas before 1848

Even though they had been living on the land for generations, Tejanos faced a lot of prejudice. Abe had seen it himself as a boy in Texas. When he was in school, he was sent to the principals office and hit for speaking Spanish. Some Anglos even put signs on their stores that read NO MEXICANS . And the city of Corpus Christi even went so far as to code their citizens by language and color.

Corpus Christi City Directory

Before the mid-1930s, the Corpus Christi, Texas, city directory listed each family by race and the language spoken at home. C stood for Colored (an outdated and offensive term for African American people), M stood for Mexican, and EM stood for English-speaking Mexican. Families with these letters by their names were often denied opportunities, like owning homes or having jobs, in their communities.

The directory was a public record, much like a phone book. Anyone could look up the codes. So, many Tejano parents stopped teaching their children Spanish. They thought it would give them a better life in America.

Corpus Christi stopped labeling families in this way by the 1940s. But the effects lasted for much longer. For many generations, Tejano children were taught to speak only English.

There were not many Mexicans in Lake Jackson. Marcella and Abe did not want their children to feel the unfair treatment that they had experienced growing up. It was important to them that Selena, Suzette, and A.B. fit in with their white neighbors and the Anglo children. Marcella and Abe taught their children to speak English instead of Spanish. Even Selenas name was pronounced the Anglo way: Seh-LEE-nah instead of Seh-LEH-nah.