Johnson Cherian.
Tuesday’s Google Doodle was a celebration of the career of late Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla, marking the 28th anniversary (October 17, 1989) of her first studio album release, Selena. Known as the Queen of Tejano Music, Selena released five more albums till her tragic death at 23, when she was shot by the president of her fan club.
The doodle is an animated singing cartoon, featuring one of her most popular hits, “Bidi bidi bom bom”. The one-and-a-half minute video tells the story of Selena’s love for singing and performing that began when she was a little girl (using a hairbrush as a mic), and how her father fostered the music habit to the rest of the family, who soon doubled up as her band. The video shows how Selena’s fan following grew, making her one of the most sought after Latin American artists of her time.
Born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas, Selena became the lead singer of her family’s band, Selena Y Los Dinos, at the age of 10. They started out playing at weddings and clubs in Texas. Her father, a former musician himself, refurbished an old bus, which became their tour bus as they set out on the road in the 1980s.
Her dad encouraged her to sing in Spanish to connect better with the Latino community and with that, her popularity among Tejano music fans grew. At the 1987 Tejano Music Awards, she won both “Best Female Vocalist of the Year” and “Performer of the Year.” In 1993, she won the Grammy Award for her album Live, in the best Mexican-American album category.
In 1995, while working on her first English album, her life was tragically cut short when she was murdered by Yolanda Saldivar. Saldivar had also been managing Selena’s boutique and it is said that she was about to be fired for embezzling money. The album was released, posthumously.
The doodle idea was conceived by Perla Campos, Global Marketing Lead for Google Doodles, who was also Selena’s fan. Ms. Campos, who like Selena grew up in Texas as a Mexican immigrant, got in touch with the late singer’s family to put together a fitting tribute.
“The little details I gave…that Selena had red nail polish on instead of bright pink. That she had hoop earrings. They even put red on the microphone the way she used to have it,” Suzette Quintanilla, Selena’s sister, told Billboard. “Featuring an immigrant woman should not be political, it should be celebrated.”
Suzette’s comment on immigrants is topical in today’s political climate in the United States, with President Donald Trump threatening to build a wall across the Mexico border to cut down on immigration.
