Overview

A literary collection honoring and memorializing Selena, the Queen of Tejano. Thirty years after her death, Selena Quintanilla-PÉrez remains a cherished figure of Mexican American popular culture, her music and celebrity resounding across the decades. This unique collection of creative and scholarly works traces Selena’s lasting impact as an entertainer and focal point of community and identity. Assembling essays, memoir, short stories, and poems, The Selena Reader memorializes a beloved singer while also exploring the politics and personal meaning of what we remember. Selena’s devoted admirers tell us what they took from her lyrics and stage presence, the official and fan tributes, and the media and products she inspired. In one essay, Tejana coming-of-age is sharply refracted through the prism of Selena’s art and social status. Another piece considers how Selena’s body and distinctive clothing have shaped the author’s sense of queer self. Honey Avila (aka Honey Andrews), the renowned Selena impersonator, shares vivid recollections of her hero. A father and daughter describe how their conversations about Selena changed their relationship and contributed to Chicana feminist consciousness in their lives. All told, this anthology amplifies the gratitude of generations who have loved, and learned from, Selena.

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9781477333488

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Reviews

A dazzling and vibrant book, illustrating the enduring cultural and political necessities of ""Selenidad"" for Latinx communities and beyond. From a range of startlingly original perspectives, this collection registers how Selena's image as a star, and as a working-class Chicana icon, matters for her fans across generational divides as well as genders and sexualities.--Richard T. Rodríguez, UC Riverside, author of A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad Readers interested in a more in-depth, scholarly approach to Selena will likely find much to admire here. Mercado-López and Hinojosa have done an excellent job bringing together a diverse range of intelligent and engaging writers. -- ""Kirkus Reviews"" (12/9/2025 12:00:00 AM) The Selena Reader is a special and necessary volume whose contents and tone will resonate deeply with multiple generations of Selena fans, national Mexican American communities, and Tejanos who have been touched by the edges of her ripple effect. Mercado-López and Hinojosa bring together essays that analyze the impact of Selena's social presence as a Mexican American public icon who straddled cultural borders and did so embodying the grace of living a truly fronteriza life. The editors have crafted a volume that is extremely intimate but also widely useful to students and scholars of Mexican American and Chicana cultural studies.--Rachel González-Martin, University of Texas at Austin, coeditor of Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture

A dazzling and vibrant book, illustrating the enduring cultural and political necessities of ""Selenidad"" for Latinx communities and beyond. From a range of startlingly original perspectives, this collection of essays registers how Selena's image as a star, and as a working-class Chicana icon, matters for her fans across generational divides as well as genders and sexualities.--Richard T. Rodríguez, UC Riverside, author of A Kiss Across the Ocean: Transatlantic Intimacies of British Post-Punk and US Latinidad

Author Information

Larissa Mercado-LÓpez is a professor of women’s, gender & sexuality studies at California State University, Fresno. She is the editor of multiple anthologies on Latinx literature, Chicanx children’s literature, and the life and work of Gloria E. AnzaldÚa. Yndalecio Hinojosa is an associate professor of English at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, where he served as the associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts. He is a coeditor of Open Words: Access and English Studies and coeditor of Bordered Writers: Latinx Identities and Literacy Practices at Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

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