Known as the Queen of Tejano Music, Selena Quintanilla was a beloved American singer, songwriter, spokesperson, model, actress, and fashion designer. She was murdered by the president of her fan club on March 31, 1995 when she was only 23 years old. November 3, 2017 is an important day for Selena fans—she will be getting her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and that day will officially be Selena Day in Los Angeles.
We celebrate Selena's legacy by presenting five fascinating facts about her life.
1. Her father, Abraham, a musician and restaurateur, put together a family band that played the traditional Tejano music of the Texas borderland. By the time she was five, Selena was performing regularly with Los Dinos (the guys), performing at parties, weddings, and bars throughout Texas. When she was nine, the band had been renamed Selena y los Dinos.
2. Neither Selena nor her siblings liked Tejano music because they did not understand it. None of them were raised speaking Spanish or understood the language. Selena learned to sing in Spanish phonetically.
3. At age 15, in 1986, she won the Female Vocalist of the Year award at the Tejano Music Awards and became one of the most successful women in the history of these awards by winning for each of the next 8 years.
4. Selena’s first English album, Dreaming of You, which went on sale a few months after her death, sold over 5 million copies since its release, becoming triple platinum.
5. Selena loved Farbegé eggs. She had a collection of over 500 displayed in her living room. The eggs are now in the Selena Museum, arranged in glass cabinets, in the same way they were arranged in Selena’s living room.
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