Until yesterday, I knew little about the late Tejano star Selena save for her tragic death at the hands of her friend. (Who was also the president of her fan club! And stealing money from her! It's a crazy story if you don't know it.)
I decided to remedy this cultural ignorance by putting on a few Selena records and reading a little bit about her.
Now, for nearly as long as I've written about music, I've been fascinated by the question of "authenticity." I put that bad boy in scare quotes because it's one of those terms that's batted about without being reliably defined.
I bring it up because the story of Selena includes a rather shocking fact:
Despite being one of the all-time most popular Latina artists (and little known within mainstream (and English-speaking) American culture, Selena was actually born in Texas and English was her first language.
It wasn't until she started performing with her family's band that she started to learn Spanish. By the time of her death at 24, she was apparently fluent in Spanish.
My first thought on learning this was on the twisted irony—an artist famed for Spanish language music who didn't speak Spanish as a first language?!—but the thought soon enough mellowed.
The sense of authenticity we demand from the artists among us is a foolish endeavor, and Selena is in good company—first and foremost, Bob Dylan.
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