Selena

Selena was born in Lake Jackson, Texas in April 16, 1971, as the youngest child of a Mexican American father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr. and a half-Cherokee Native American mother, Marcella OfeliaSamora, and was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She began singing at the age of three; when she was nine her father launched a singing group consisting of several of his children, Selena y Los Dinos. Theyinitially performed at the restaurant operated by the family. The family went bankrupt soon thereafter. They relocated to Corpus Christi, Texas, where they performed wherever they could: at streetcorners, weddings, quinceañeras, and fairs. As Selena grew more popular as a musical performer, the demands of her performance and travel schedule began to interfere with her education. Her father pulledher out of school altogether when she was in eighth grade. Eventually, at seventeen, she earned a high school diploma by correspondence.
The band's efforts at spreading their names and talents paidoff in 1985 when the fourteen-year-old Selena recorded her first album for a local record company. The album was not sold in stores and her father bought all of the original copies. It was re-releasedin 1995 under the title Mis Primeras Grabaciones. Over the next three years, while not having a recording contract, she released six more albums
In early 1995, the Quintanilla discovered thatSaldívar was embezzling money from the fan club, and they decided to fire her. Three weeks later, Selena agreed to meet Saldívar in a Days Inn hotel in Corpus Christi on the morning of March 31, 1995, toretrieve financial records Saldívar had been refusing to turn over. At the hotel, Saldívar once again delayed the handover by claiming she had been raped in Mexico. The singer drove Saldívar to a localhospital, where doctors found no evidence of rape. The two returned to the motel, where Selena again demanded the missing financial papers. Saldívar drew a gun and aimed at Selena. As Selena tried to...