The Enduring Beauty of Selena Quintanilla-Perez, the Queen of Tejano

#Selena #Tejano #SelenaQuintanillaPerez #Mexicana #Tejas

By Tijana Ilich

Selena Quintanilla-Perez became known as the "Queen of Tejano Music" during her short but well-received music career performing in the genre in her home state of Texas before her tragic death at age 24 in 1995.

Selena was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas, and raised in a Mexican-American family, but only spoke "kitchen Spanish," originally learning to sing her Spanish tunes phonetically but later taking intensive Spanish classes to sharpen her vocabulary and pronunciation.
She released her first album, "Mi Primeras Grabaciones" with her band "Selena y Los Dinos" in 1984, but the group wasn't noticed until seven years later, in 1989, when she signed a record contract with Capitol/EMI.

Growing up in Texas

Selena was the youngest of three children born to Mexican-American Abraham Quintanilla and Marcella. Her father loved music and formed a band with Selena, her sister Suzette and her brother A.B. (A.B. Quintanilla III of Los Kumbia Kings / Kumbia All Starz fame). Selena was 6 years old, but her father claims he could tell she was destined for a musical career because she had perfect pitch and timing.
Quintanilla Sr. had performed as a vocalist with "Los Dinos" ("The Boys") when he was young so when he opened a restaurant named "Papagallos" a few years later, the newly formed band "Selena Y Los Dinos" were the featured performers.
Although the restaurant failed and the family went bankrupt and relocated to Corpus Christi, the band hit the road, performing at weddings, cantinas, and festivals throughout southern Texas. Ultimately, Quintanilla pulled Selena out of school when she was in the eighth grade so that she could stay on the road, and she passed her high school equivalency exam via correspondence school.

Early Albums and International Attention

In the beginning, "Selena y Los Dinos" was a small band comprised primarily of Selena, Suzette, and A.B., but over the next few years, they added a few members and started recording for a small local label. Their first album, "Mi Primeras Grabaciones," came out in 1984, and although it wasn't sold in any stores, Quintanilla would carry the album with him and pitch them to record executives at the band's performances.
The band recorded 5 albums in this manner, including "Alpha" in 1986; "Preciosa" and "Dulce Amor" came out in 1988. The previous year, Selena won the Tejano Music Award for "Best Female Vocalist" and "Best Female Performer" when she was just 15 years old.
For the next 7 years, Selena would continue to win award after award. In 1989, she signed a record contract with Capitol/EMI and made a string of albums, including "Ven Conmigo," "Entre A Mi Mundo" and "Baile Esta Cumbia." Her 1993 album "Selena Live!" won the "Best Mexican-American Album" Grammy, making Selena the only Tejano artist to win a Grammy award.

Personal Affairs and Business Endeavors

Things were going well in Selena's personal life, as she'd met a man named Chris Perez, who was hired to perform in Selena's band, and the two married in 1992 after overcoming her father's objections and agreeing to move into the house next door. In the family business, Perez is still performing with brother A.B.'s Kumbia Kings/Kumbia All-Starz.
Selena also began to capitalize on her fame in other ways. She opened Selena Etc. Inc, a company that included boutiques that sold her clothing line.
The family avoided fan clubs until 1990, when Selena met Yolanda Saldivar, the aunt of one of Selena's childhood friends. Although they were strangers then, Saldivar convinced the family that a fan club would be a good idea and professed great admiration for the singer. Saldivar became the president of Selena's fan club—an unpaid position that soon boasted over 9000 members.
In 1994, as a reward for her hard work, Selena promoted Saldivar to the paid position of overseeing Selena Etc. Inc. Things started going wrong in short order. The company's designer quit, saying he couldn't work with Saldivar; products that had been paid for were not delivered, and there were accusations of misused and missing funds.

Tragedy and Betrayal

Selena and her father confronted Saldivar. The Washington Post reported that Saldivar was actually fired by phone the evening of March 29th and that the fan club president simply said, "OK". The next day Saldivar called back and made arrangements to meet with Selena so that she could hand over some paperwork.
On the morning of March 31, 1995, Selena went to the Days Inn in Corpus Christi to meet with Saldivar. We can only guess what was said, but Saldivar shot her briefly as Selena left the room. Selena made it to the lobby before collapsing. She died at the hospital a few hours later. It was 2 weeks before her 24th birthday.
While Selena's young life prematurely ended, she continues to win awards and sell records. Her popularity has only grown in the wake of her death with the posthumous release of her last unfinished crossover album "Dreaming Of You," which went quadruple platinum upon its release in 2004, proving that while Selena may have lost her life, her voice has not been stilled.

Five Simple Ways to Start Communicating More Mindfully

#Communication #HealthyRelationship #Mindfulness If you've ever practiced mindfulness, you're probably already aware of the many benefits it offers for the willing and dedicated practitioner. When we open ourselves to this practice, we create the potential for our lives to be transformed in ways that might seem subtle but are truly life-altering. Though many of the benefits of mindfulness are personal and internal—improved concentration, expanded sense of awareness, increased patience, and enduring states of tranquility, to name a few—some important aspects of the practice can positively affect our external experience as well. Take communication, for example. Using mindfulness in our communication with others can improve our relationships and help us navigate even the most difficult conversations. If you already have a practice of cultivating mindfulness, a little intention is all you’ll need to start applying it to your communication. If you haven’t yet developed a pra...

New fascinating insights on the psychological effects of Hugging

#Hug #Hugging #Emotions #Stress #Mood #BlackMaleTherapist #Psychotherapy #MentalHealth During the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and restrictions, one of the things many people missed most was getting hugged by their loved ones. This led to an increased interest in the positive effects of hugging in the psychology research community and several studies published over the last year have yielded new insights on what it means to us to be hugged. Here are four of the most interesting new insights into the science of hugging. 1. Getting hugged by others, but also hugging yourself, reduces stress hormones A recent study by researcher Aljoscha Dreisoerner from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and his team focused on the positive effects of hugging on stress (Dreisoerner et al., 2021). Interestingly, the scientists not only investigated how getting hugged by other people could reduce stress, but also whether hugging yourself (e.g., when other people are not ...

5 Communication Tweaks That Increase Intimacy

#Communication #trust #Empathy #Attachment #mirroring #reciprocating #apology #defensive #Psychology “Working on our communication” is one of the most commonly cited reasons couples seek relationship counseling. This is not surprising. Often, over time, even the best of relationships can fall victim to negative communication patterns. This is especially true for couples who find themselves under a lot of stress because, naturally, when our coping mechanisms are overtaxed, we default to older—more primitive and less mature—ways of coping (cf. Weinberger & Stoycheva, 2019). A colleague used to say that when we are distressed, we become caricatures of ourselves—i.e., our worst qualities become exaggerated. It gets harder to employ our most thought-out and balanced ways of interacting with the world. However, several tweaks only require a little time or effort, just repetition, and attention to our automatic behaviors that we can make to improve our connection with our partners. ...

Yale neuroscientists debunked the idea that anyone is “normal”

#Yale #Normal #neuroscientists #Study #Human Don’t you wish everyone would just act more normal, like you? I know I do. But normal is a relative state that depends on time, place, and circumstance. There’s no one right way to be a human, and that applies to mental as well as physical states. That’s why neuroscientists are advocating for more recognition of the bizarre normalcy of all complex humans in psychiatry—an argument that can help all of us take a bigger-picture view. A new study published in Trends in Cognitive Science on Feb. 20 debunks the myth of normalcy in people and animals. “ The Myth of Optimality in Clinical Neuroscience ” (paywall), by Avram Holmes and Lauren Patrick of the Yale University psychology department, uses evolution to show that uniformity in our brains is totally abnormal. What’s much more common in life, during its 3.5 billion years of evolving existence on Earth , is range and change, variety in and among creatures and ha...

Triple5Light Therapy

Search This Blog