214 Selena

Despite her death Selena Quintanilla lives through generations. Her songs are popular among plenty Mexican American households. Even those who weren’t alive during her time still consider her an iconic figure in American history.

She was one of the first brown Mexican American artists who became a role model to many young girls. A big part of why people love her is because they identify and see themselves represented in Selena.

Selena’s legacy brings people together, it unites a community. I knew that I wanted to feature the 214 Selena event from March for this project. I knew that her impact goes beyond the look alike contest and the dancing. She continues to give hope to girls who dream of becoming a singer.

Shooting 214 Selena was fun. I got to meet new people while also experiencing the love the Dallas community has for her.

[photos by Jeremy Pesina]

The video project process: 

Some troubleshooting while working on this video essay included getting clear audio. I wanted to get a subject talking by the Selena mural at Country Burger but a car was playing music very loudly. Even in quiet spaces like Eva’s home, a small section of the audio sounded off.

One of the big challenges for this video project was that Premiere was running super slow. So instead of having a quick editing process the program kept lagging delaying my editing making it so tedious when in most occasions editing videos is quite fun. I can’t really understand why but it was quite strange how slow the program was working it was very frustrating. Any edit I tried to make would take forever to load.

Other that technical difficulties shooting and planning this video was fun. I got to attend a fun event that celebrates the queen of Tejano music along with the people who love and remember her.

What’s your favorite Selena song and why do you think her legacy continues to live on 20 years past her death ?