Selena Quintanilla-Perez was a talented Mexican-American singer, songwriter, spokesperson, actress, and fashion designer. On top of her career, she had respect, and was admired as a great role model by Mexican Americans. The “Queen of Tejano” music, her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century. Billboard magazine named her the “Top Latin Artist of the 90s” and then “Best Selling Latin Artist of the decade”. Selena ranks among the most influential Latin artists of all time and is credited for catapulting a music genre into the mainstream market. Even though Selena was murdered, she achieved many great things throughout her lifetime. She is still remembered …show more content…
He taught his children how to play an instrument at an early age. His son Abraham was taught to play the bass guitar and his daughter Suzette, the drums. Selena was too young at the time to learn how to play an instrument so her father did not teach her. Although Selena felt excluded from the group, she began singing when she was six. Abraham could not believe Selena’s beautiful voice. He was the first person to recognize her special talent with singing. He was convinced that she was destined to become a star. When Selena was 9, her father started the band “Selena Y Los Dinos” (Selena and The Guys) and was the manager of the group. Selena was the lead singer of the band, while her brother played the bass guitar and her sister played the drums. The band’s first performances were in Papagallos. Selena became very popular by traveling with the band to perform music. However, traveling everywhere interfered with her school education. Selena was taken out of school by her father in the 8th grade, but she still received a high school diploma from a school in …show more content…
She was rewarded greatly for her hard work. Selena tried new things, fearlessly in her music. She defined a new genre of music which Tejanos would enjoy. She saw this as a chance to share her culture with Mexicans and Americans. Aside from her music, Selena was active in her community and donated her time to civic causes. She was an education advocate for the Cunningham Middle School in Texas. She spoke to the students and urged them to “stay in school and stay away from drugs”. She influenced the students and inspired them to become successful in their lives. Selena opened her own boutique called “Selena Etc.” She dreamed of selling clothing and jewelry of her own since childhood. In January of 1995, she opened a second one in San Antonio, Texas. Selena’s clothing line and jewelry became very popular. Despite all of Selena’s achievements, she encountered criticism. She was labeled as a sex icon for her “too sexy, inappropriate outfits” on stage. Comments like these hurt her reputation because of her choice of clothing. However, she did not change due to other people’s comments. She continued to wear sexy outfits on stage and still made it to the
Selena started singing english songs, rather than spanish songs which became popular in the american culture too.
First, the person who first found Selena’s ability and capability was her father. To be more specific, with her father’s entire support, Selena could tour country fairs and played school dances with her siblings. Her father, Abraham even opened a restaurant just in order to book his kids to perform in the place. In this process, there is a scene that Selena’s mom and dad had argument because her mom did not like Abraham strongly pushed her to be like a professional singer even though she is a little girl. Thus, her mom and dad had had opposite views. Her mom wanted Selena to enjoy when she sings, but her father wanted her to draw her heart/soul out to the audiences when she performs on the stage. There are a lot of people who have outstanding
Selena and her family didn't have much when she was younger, but they did have a big vision that they weren't going to give up on. With the support of one another, they were able to create one of biggest Latina superstars to ever exist, with a lasting legacy that only continues to keep growing. She knew what it was like to have a hard life, so she helped people with her dream. She enjoyed the simple things in life such as music and her family. So with the help of her gift, hard work, and a dream that no one could put out, she became one of the best Latino singers in the world.
Selena practiced sing in Spanish and when she perfected it, she performed it. Selena started to become big, performing with her family all over. Her father Abraham being the manager they ended up meeting Chris Pérez, who was a very good guitarist. They considered Chris Pérez joining the
As a historical figure of my assignment I chose to search on Jenni Rivera. She had a dramatic and tragically life before becoming famous. She went through being poor; living she lived in a garage in long beach, California. She was abused, a victim of domestic violence, humiliated, and cheated on as a women, . Aall because of being a young single mother. Rivera, never settled for less, she pursued her dream as a singer; of traditional Mexican music. She went to bars and night clubs to let her voice and name be known, in California. Due to her effort, strength, never giving up, and family support she became an positive influence to many women .
pop music because other artists had already broken the barrier of this new trend of genre combinations. Selena was making a crossover to dance music similar to Paula Abdul or Madonna.
The main character in the film “Selena” is a woman named Selena. Everyone else in the movie is a sub character that plays off of the role of Selena. The movie is about Selena’s life and the movie begins with her as a little girl and ends with her as a Mexican-American pop star loved by both the Mexican and American communities. Selena goes from being a young girl who’s band is compromised of her brothers and sisters to a mega star known by fans all over the world. As Selena became more successful she faced many obstacles in her career. First, Selena had to learn Spanish in order to sing in Spanish to connect with the Mexican community as her father felt she had the best chance to make it big if she tried to appeal to the Mexican community. Once she became a huge star with her Spanish singing music, she then did a crossover album in English, which helped to make her a pop star worldwide. Since Selena was Mexican-American, not Mexican, it was an obstacle for her to be seen as authentic by the Mexican community. Selena’s second big obstacle was that she was a woman. Mexico is traditionally a male dominant society and before Selena there had never been a Spanish singing female to evolve into a superstar. In the movie, Selena overcomes both of these obstacles and she does become one of the greatest
To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there
Unfortunatly after the Texas Oil Bust of 1981, the restaurant went bankrupt and had to be shut down. So Abraham bought a bus and “Selena Y Los Dinos” began to tour the Texas countryside. At age 13 Selena had to leave 8th grade and start taking high school correspondence courses by mail. Selena sang almost exclusively Spanish. She sang a Tex-Mex pop called Tejano. They made there first recording in 1984, slowly people started to notice and love Selena, but by her being a female Tejano performer, no one thought she would actually last, because the Tejano industry of music was ruled over by men, and although many women had tried, they rarely made it to stardom. Little did they know that “Selena Y Los Dinos” would climb the charts and end up being the top Tejano band in the country. It was in 1987, that they really started to make it to the top. All the recording and touring throughout the 80’s finally paid off, because in 1987 “Selena y Los Dinos” came to national attention, when Selena won a Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist and Performer of the Year. It was a great accomplishment for a 15 year old girl. Until then the two categories didn’t even exist. Her fame was definitely being brought to the Latino communities, but Selena wanted more. In 1989, Selena and her band were signed to EMI, also known as Capitol Records, releasing there album a year later. Over the next few years
So in 1987 she won the “Best Female Vocalist of the Year” and “Performer of the Year” and in 1990 her album called “Ven Conmigo” was the first Tejano record to achieve gold record status. That means that more than 500,000 copies were sold. All of this is according to biography.com She got married to Chris Perez in 1992 this is while she was on a break with her musical career. She won the Grammy Award in 1993 and in 1994 she released “Amor Prohibido” and it went gold that same year. You have probably heard this song because it is still popular today in the Spanish Community. Selena was shooting to the top. She had received so many awards in
On May 6 of that same year, Selena Quintanilla released a new album titled “Entre a Mi Mundo”. It ascended to the #1 spot on the U.S Billboard Regional Mexican albums chart! People started calling her the Queen of Tejano Music and many said that she was the Mexican Madonna because of her glamorous outfits. When Selena Quintanilla was finally nominated for a Grammy in 1994, she wore a gorgeous white beaded dress which in the end was donated to the Selena Museum.
I chose to watch Selena. Overall, the movie was really good. I chose it because it looked like a movie I would watch just for fun. I figured if the movie is good then the paper will be easier for me to write. I have also heard a lot about Selena, so the movie tied the pieces of information I already knew together. I feel like I learned a lot about her relationship with her family. She started out singing with her brother and sister in a band their dad made and named Selena y los Dinos (Selena and the Boys). Her brother, A.B., was the bass player, Selena did the lead vocals, and her sister, Suzette, played the drums. They started out playing at a Mexican restaurant their parents owned. However, they gained attention and developed a fan base from that. Eventually, they begin touring around Texas at State Fairs. Selena grows up and her music and style does too. She meets the love of her life, who also happened to be her guitarist. They get married even though Selena’s father did not allow her to see him. She is later killed by the president of her fan club over a paperwork dispute. Her music career is cut short and she died before she got the chance to make her way into mainstream pop music.
Selena’s talent was distributed to a larger audience and was no longer confined to the walls of the family business when Primo Ledesma, a disc jockey, who hosted a weekly Spanish-language radio show, drifted into Papa Gayo’s for a listen. Lesdema recorded Selena singing, telling her father, Abraham, that “she was going places” (Patoski 42). There were numerous responses and intrigues about the new voice that was played when Ledesma broadcasted the tape on his show the following day. The incident with Ledesma was the beginning of the fame Selena would come to know. After Papa Gayo’s was shut down due to foreclosure, the Quintanilla family went bankrupt as well. This hapless circumstance came to be the initiation of Selena’s musical career: Selena recounts, “Basically, my musical career started when my family went bankrupt, and had to resort to music for money” (Patoski 43-45). The Quintanilla children hit the road, performing throughout southern Texas as Selena y Los Dinos with their father Abraham as their manager. Their venues consisted of weddings, cantinas and honky-tonks, and even when the audience was less than ten people, the group never passed up an opportunity to perform; the family’s means of survival lied in those performances (“Selena”).
Selena Quintanilla was such an amazing person inside and out more known as the queen of tejano music. She won the hearts of many people young and old in the little time she was here on earth. Blessing many people with her contagious smile, and positive upbeat attitude. Selena has always had where to pull from when it came to being musically talented. Her father Abraham Quintanilla played in a band called Los Dinos which means the boys in Spanish. He had to give his life up as an artist because he got married and had his first kid. Therefore he had to find a better support system for his family. So when he saw that Selena had talent he focused all his goals and dreams on her. Therefore selena had to make a lot of sacrifices and not live a normal childhood.
On April 3, 1992, Selena married a guitar player named Chris Perez who was a part of her band. In 1990 a fan came up with idea of a fan club the person who thought of this was Yolando Salivate, who later became one of her good friend and her killer. In 1994 was when she really became a superstar, she released Amor Prohibido an album that was number one on the chart. Some of her other song where, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, Fotos Y Recuerdos, No Me Queda Mas, El Chico Del Apartamento 512. Later that year she opened up a boutique that was her dream she loved clothes and fashion. Sadly Selena did not get any further she was shot and was pronounced dead at about 1:09 PM. After she died they released her first single off of her english album, it was called Dreaming for You. It went up the charts when it came out but sadly she was not there to see it but her legacy live on. In April 2005 there was a huge tribute concert for Selena, it was the week after her tenth month anniversary of her death. The event was called Selena Vive, many people can out to this to honor this singer who was taken from the earth too soon. She is remembered as a little girl who love to sing, had an amazing voice, and even though her family did not have enough money, she made her dream come