The Renaissance of Selena Quintanilla

Last year on August 30, the 21st anniversary of Selena Quintanilla’s final studio album, Madame Tussauds paid homage to the late Mexican-American singer with the reveal of her life-like wax figure. Two months later, MAC Cosmetics released a makeup collection commemorating the music legend. Selling out the same day, it remains as the highest grossing makeup collection to date.

Throughout the past year, a stop at Target, Hot Topic or Urban Outfitters could have led you to a variety of T-Shirts honoring the Queen of Tejano. Even Kylie Jenner, Drake and Big Sean have been recently spotted wearing vintage Selena shirts.

About a month ago, on October 17, Google’s homepage celebrated Quintanilla with a moving Doodle exhibiting her sensational singing career. Two weeks later, Kim Kardashian and Demi Lovato both dressed up in Quintanilla’s iconic purple jumpsuit for Halloween. And just a few weeks ago, Selena received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, attracting over 4,500 people, the largest crowd to gather for a star’s unveiling in history.

It has been almost 22 years since Selena Quintanilla was tragically shot and killed. Clearly, her legacy is alive and well. But even more, the Tejano icon has resurged to the height of mainstream fashion and American pop culture. Selena is back in style, but why now?

Mexican-American Northwestern freshman Irazú Hernández said, “For the Mexican community, she’s kind of always been a big thing. She was the first person to merge both cultures and she embraced her latinidad while being accepted and loved by Americans…”

Every year, Univision broadcasts Quintanilla’s biopic Selena in remembrance of her life, proving that you can’t make a comeback if you never left. Still, it seems Selena has recently become more prevalent throughout the general American culture.

Coined as the “Selena Renaissance,” many are speculating it is Donald Trump’s controversial presidency that has revived the Mexican-American icon, while others feel the trend has naturally more to do with the growing Hispanic population in the United States. Hernández thinks it is a combination of both.

“There’s such a change in demographics in the U.S. already,” Hernández said, “I think businesses are realizing that it’s becoming more diverse and that people want greater representation in their style, so businesses are using that to profit. But at the same time, I’m hoping that businesses are also seeing it as a way to comfort others.”

As presidential campaigns go on, it seems that immigration is becoming a larger part of presidential promises and agendas. During President Trump’s 2016 run, he repeatedly promised to build a wall along the Mexican border, pointed out a judge’s Mexican heritage as a conflict of interest, and hastily generalized Mexican immigrants as druggies, criminals and rapists. Although he also assumed that some are “good people,” these infamous moments during President Trump’s election alienated many Mexicans, Hispanics and Americans.

Feelings of assault and vulnerability within the Mexican-American community may be the reason as to why Selena Quintanilla is now “back in style” over two decades after her death. She was a Mexican-American who embodied the beauty and difficulty of being a Mexican descendant in America.

Northwestern Professor Maria Teresa Villanueva, a second-generation Mexican-American who grew up listening to Selena, said, “I saw in her another girl struggling to identify with two languages, cultures, and traditions that, at times, were contradicting.”

Although most of Quintanilla’s songs are in Spanish, the “Mexican Madonna” actually grew up speaking English and later phonetically learned songs in Spanish in order to better connect with her Latino audience. Ironically, many Americans of Mexican descent feel a connection to Quintanilla because of her amateur Spanish skills, a growing pattern among recent generations of Mexican-Americans.

“Our reality was harsh because according to our Mexican families, we were too American and didn’t speak Spanish well, so we were a vergüenza  (embarrassment),” Villanueva said. “At the same time, in our school and/or society, we were tagged as brown people, beaners, wetbacks, English speakers with an accent, violent, unsafe, etc. Selena demystified all of that and more with her music, charisma, and confidence. ”

Although Quintanilla began singing at the age of six around Texas, she quickly gratified fame in the Mexican and American markets. At the age of 16, she had won Best Female Vocalist of the Year and Performer of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards. By 22, she had won her first Grammy and was already working on an English-language crossover album.

“When she gained popularity, I felt proud because people from Mexico and the US started to love her and that meant that being Mexican-American was not only okay but beautiful. At her young age, Selena proved her resilience. She wasn’t Mexican nor American--she was both. She integrated the best of both cultures into her identity,” Villanueva said.

It is no wonder Selena’s music and personality continue to serve as an ideal of hope among Hispanic communities today.

“I think she inspires unity and hope that people can come together in the future no matter their ethnicity and backgrounds,” Hernández said, “But also, I think she inspires lots of love. Her songs are just happy and make you want to dance--unity with love--I feel like it’s a way to bring people together and laugh and, hopefully, have that same smile that she had that was so amazing.”

Not only do Mexican-Americans love Selena as a relatable role model, but they love Selena. Long before it became fashionable, Tejano and Hispanic communities were cheering on the woman who broke so many language and cultural barriers. At the end of the day, she is the ideal for many Americans. Her talent and personality transcend division.

In many ways, Quintanilla was and is the American Dream. Perhaps, that is why she continues to pull a record-breaking number of people into Sephora’s MAC section and onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame today.

In regards to the only recent addition of Quintanilla’s pink star, Hernández speculated, “Maybe people just realized that they were stupid and should’ve done it a long time ago. How have we not given her a star yet?”

How have we not given her a star yet? Clearly, Selena Quintanilla deserved a seal of establishment long ago, but, perhaps, people did not anticipate her star shining this long. She has proven a vivacious legacy despite an early death, and that has to be commended.