The Resonance of Selena

She has been dead for four years.

No one in her family who says this seems to believe it. Yet there’s her bronze statue, by the ocean, a life-sized Selena Quintanilla Perez gazing out at the water. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight days. And nights. The sea comes, the sea goes again, lapping at the life left on this shore. Father, mother, brother, sister.

The breeze comes hot here. Even in winter it is thick and moist. The smokestacks from the refineries rise to the sky in packs, like cigarettes, all over this plain land. Oil country. Flat. Quiet.

One part of town is more quiet than the others. At night here, a lonely Texaco station provides the only glow for insects to bump against. A greyhound racetrack sits near an industrial lubricants plant, and wooden shacks sprout weeds in their walls.

Among this desolation stands a nondescript beige warehouse. The only sign is a street number: 5410. If you did not know this was Q Productions, Selena’s family’s business, you would not guess that inside there are emerald marble floors, paisley carpets, a pink recording studio, a television studio and the Selena Museum, which the family opened last year when it realized the flow of fans coming to see her gowns, photos and awards had not slowed much with the passing of time.

Selena was gunned down at the age of 23 in front of a motel a few blocks from here, on March 31, 1995. Five weeks ago, EMI Latin released the fourth posthumous Selena album, “All My Hits--Todos Mis Exitos.”

Although there are no new songs on the album, EMI distinguished it from previous releases by including a commemorative pin in the packaging. The album debuted atop the Billboard Latin 50 chart and remained there for two weeks before dropping behind Ricky Martin’s “Vuelve.” The album remains in the No. 2 slot; according to EMI Latin national marketing director Lupe De La Cruz, the company has shipped more than half a million units, about half of which he estimates have already been sold.

The album and anniversary have put Selena on America’s collective mind again. Last month, Q Productions was swarmed with reporters from around the world, all wanting to know how the family is coping.

How are you feeling, Mr. Quintanilla? Indeed. He says he feels horrible, only slightly less so than four years ago. How are Marcela, A.B., Suzette, Chris? Their hearts beat, their lungs fill with air, their pain comes and goes. But most of all, they are all moving on with their lives. You cannot live in a room filled with candles forever, said Chris Perez, Selena’s widower, in a recent magazine interview, even if everyone expects you to.

Perhaps the pain would be lessened if the anniversary of her death had not been marked by the release of another tribute album. But EMI Latin says it wasn’t planned as an exploitative coincidence--rather, the release was pushed back from January because of delays related to the packaging.

All of the very human players in the Selena tragedy are finding their way through life. Blown apart, they say, by the murder, the family is slowly coming back together. Healing. Not to say that they are moving on completely; Selena’s mother, Marcela, still spends entire days in bed, and her sister, Suzette, sometimes can’t drag herself to the office in the Selena Museum, where she is surrounded by the singer’s gowns in display cases.

But a beautiful thing has also happened: Out of the pain left by Selena’s convicted killer, Yolanda Saldivar, a garden has sprung up, filled with talent and ambition and future.

Promising young singers, male and female, record in the studio that Selena built, produced by her father, Abraham, including 15-year-old Jennifer Pena, a big winner at last month’s Tejano Music Awards, the genre’s version of the Grammy Awards.

A.B., Selena’s older brother, has grown into a coveted producer and two weeks ago released a debut album on EMI Latin with his new band, the Kumbia Kings. Older sister Suzette has realized Selena’s dream of developing a clothing line, and has discovered her talent for business in the process. Chris Perez has a solo deal with Hollywood Records, and is fulfilling his dream of pursuing a rock career; it is said he has a girlfriend.

And Selena’s legacy reverberates outside the family as well.

People magazine executives were persuaded to speed up creation of a national Spanish-language edition when its special Selena tribute issue became the magazine’s most successful such publication in history, outperforming similar memorials for Princess Diana and Jacqueline Onassis. People En Espanol now claims to be the most popular Spanish-language magazine in the nation.

At EMI Latin, Selena continues to be the top-selling artist, topping popular acts such as Thalia and Carlos Ponce. “This is and remains the house that Selena built,” says EMI Latin chief executive Jose Behar, who discovered her.

Even Jennifer Lopez, once a relatively unknown actress, rose to superstardom after portraying Selena in the Hollywood movie about the singer’s life; on June 22, Lopez will release her own debut album on Sony, a dream that materialized for her after she lip-synched Selena’s songs in front of 30,000 extras for the movie.

It is odd, but from Selena’s blood has come a flowering of creativity, and a realization of dreams that--though no one will say outright--might not have been possible without this unwilling martyrdom.

Abraham

Abraham Quintanilla, 60, is from another time. Born and raised in Corpus Christi, he remembers when the water fountains in town were segregated, one for whites and one for blacks.

“We Mexicans drank at whichever one we wanted to,” he says, sitting down for lunch at his favorite restaurant, the humble Hi Ho. He takes his usual seat in the baby-blue back room, at a shaky table in a corner adorned with posters of his most famous child. Polite patrons steal sorrowful looks at him over their plates; he ignores the attention.

As he eats his lunch, Quintanilla talks about his early life as a rock musician, laboring for recognition more than 40 years ago. “America wasn’t ready for Latin artists singing in English, even if they were Americans,” he says.

It was this realization in 1978 that led Quintanilla to retool his fruitless rock group, Los Dinos, as a Spanish-language musical group for his three children--A.B. as bassist, Suzette as drummer and Selena, then 6, as lead singer. Called Selena y Los Dinos, the group performed tejano music, a hybrid of regional sounds that resonated with Mexican Americans. In 1989, EMI Latin signed the group, but suggested it be promoted simply as Selena.

Comfortable with Selena’s success, Quintanilla began trying his hand with other artists. Even while Selena was alive, her father had begun to envision a production company with a full roster of Latino talent.

So no one should have really been surprised when, after Selena was killed, Quintanilla continued with the business of developing new artists. Nonetheless, some people were critical of him diving into work after his daughter’s death. A devout Jehovah’s Witness, he combats the pain of his loss and the additional pain of the brutal--and, he says, unfair--media coverage by turning to the red Bible in his office. He says he prefers to be in the background, and the constant media spotlight has made it almost impossible for him to grieve in peace.

The media in Texas have been especially critical of Quintanilla’s choice to produce another bright, young, female tejano singer from Corpus Christi, only five months after Selena’s murder.

Jennifer Pena, the daughter of an obstetrician and housewife, was only 11 when her idol was killed. Pena’s mother suggested the girl make a videotape of herself performing Selena’s songs to Quintanilla as a condolence gift. Pena had been singing publicly since she was 6 years old, often performing Selena’s songs.

Quintanilla was moved by the tape, and called Pena’s parents to tell them he would like to be her manager and producer. He was accused by many of “trying to replace Selena,” he says, his eyes filling with tears. “That’s not at all what I was doing. We would have produced her no matter what. I had to keep busy or I would have died.”

Quintanilla’s son, A.B., says he thinks his father “probably found some comfort” in diving into producing Pena’s first album. “Something about her probably reminded him of Selena,” he says.

But Quintanilla’s emotional need to be involved was not conscious, say those who know him, and he was not motivated by greed, as some have alleged.

“I just thought Jennifer had a lot of talent,” Quintanilla says. “I’m also producing a female merengue singer, and an all-male vocal group, but no one jumps on that.”

Pena, an outgoing young woman with a disarming smile, is talkative, bright and charming and in many ways a stereotypical American teen. She lives in the suburbs, speaks little Spanish, hangs out at the mall, has a pierced belly button, loves Leonardo DiCaprio, and used to complain when her parents--themselves second-generation Mexican Americans more comfortable speaking in English--would tune the car stereo to Spanish stations. That is, until she heard Selena.

“That was the day she paid attention to Spanish music,” Jennifer’s father, Jaime, said in an interview in the dining room of the family’s spacious red brick home in an affluent part of Corpus Christi.

“It was like [Selena] sang rock or hip-hop, but in Spanish,” Jennifer explained. “It was so cool. She was so pretty. I thought, ‘Oh man, I want to do that.’ ”

Pena’s first album for EMI Latin, “Dulzura,” under the group name Jennifer Y Los Jetz, was released in 1997, when she was 13; it sold more than 150,000 copies.

The following year, Pena was voted best female entertainer at the Tejano Music Awards and she and her group won the rising star group category. At this year’s ceremony, she took home prizes for best female entertainer and best female vocalist.

Despite the acclaim, commercial interest in Pena seems to be waning. Her second album, “Jennifer,” released when she was 14, sold half as many copies as the first. Her latest album, “Mariposa,” released in November, shipped only 70,000 copies.

EMI Latin says Pena’s shaky trajectory has more to do with her age than public resentment. “When you have an artist this young, who’s in school, you can’t really send her out on promotional tours as often as you’d like,” marketing director De La Cruz says.

But Pena herself says news accounts of her as a wannabe Selena have hurt her career. A.B., Selena’s older brother, agrees. “She’s a great girl, and a good singer, and I wish her the best,” he said. “But I told my dad to be more careful about the way they promoted her image.”

“The big Selena fans get mad at me,” Pena says. “They say there will never be another Selena. And I agree. I’m not trying to be Selena. I’m trying to be Jennifer.”

At this moment, the teen’s bedroom walls are lined with posters that include the Spice Girls and Hanson. In her stereo are discs by Garbage, Korn, Hole and Matchbox 20. This is the type of music she would like to do someday. “I love tejano, don’t get me wrong,” she says. “But I’m an American girl. I’d like to go further. I watch people like Brandy or Usher who act and sing, and I’m, like, I want to do that.”

In addition to Pena, Quintanilla is also managing another young female singer, this one named Maya (Lorena Pinot), who recently moved to Corpus Christi from Princeton, N.J., to record her first album at Q Productions.

The 20-year-old American-born daughter of Guatemalan parents has been performing since she was a high school freshman. Like Pena, Maya sent Quintanilla a video of herself singing Selena songs shortly after the murder, though the arrangements were done merengue-style--a fast dance music from the Dominican Republic.

With her long, curly blond hair, shockingly perfect figure and deep, powerhouse voice, Maya was hard to ignore. Quintanilla brought Maya on board to record an album, most of which has been completed.

Another act Quintanilla is cultivating is an all-male vocal group called Unison, made up of handsome young Latin men in their teens and 20s; the music is similar to the Barrio Boyz and Boyz II Men. Quintanilla is also at work on an album by Ray Paz, a keyboardist and singer who has been a songwriter and producer at Q Productions for years.

Paz, when asked by Quintanilla to sing a little something for a reporter, broke into Ray Charles’ “Georgia on My Mind.”

“Admit it,” joked Paz, who is blind, fiddling with his dark glasses. “You were thinking that.”

Quintanilla laughed, then made a joke of his own about the omnipresent Chihuahua who is the company mascot. For a moment, it was clear that this used to be a place filled with laughter and hope.

Slowly, it is becoming that again.

A.B.

Abraham Quintanilla III, otherwise known as A.B., is a gifted bass player and songwriter responsible for writing, arranging and producing many of his younger sister’s greatest hits.

With his floppy hat and goofy grin, A.B. comes across as an affable, bright and funny guy. Though devastated by his sister’s murder, A.B. has mourned the loss and has arrived at the final stage: acceptance. He stopped writing music and performing after her murder, and though he worked during that time as a producer for artists like Thalia, he only started wanting to write and perform again late last year.

He is busy promoting his Kumbia Kings album--called “Amor, Familia y Respeto” (Love, Family and Respect--a glitzy pop mixture of cumbia, hip-hop, rap and reggae. On Monday, the popular Cristina talk show on Univision will devote the entire hour to A.B., the Kumbia Kings, and last month’s opening of A.B.’s new Corpus Christi nightclub, the $1.7-million Planeta Luna.

Seated at the kitchen bar in his sprawling Miami-style hilltop mansion, A.B. said, “I’ve been wanting to do music for a long time. No disrespect to my sister, I love her and miss her and it was horrible, but I have to move on. I see this album as being where I would have taken Selena if she’d lived. It’s young, it’s hot, it’s a mix of all the sounds people like us have grown up hearing.”

The Kumbia Kings are produced by A.B.’s production company and are managed by his father. The group practices in A.B.’s stylish, gigantic living room, and records in his own private studio upstairs, decorated in Art Deco purples and silver.

“I love it here in Corpus,” A.B. says. “It’s home. My family’s here. We blew apart after Selena died, we all just sort of went our own ways. But it’s better now. Little by little, things are starting to make sense again.”

Suzette

In the world of music, drummers get overlooked the most. They’re the backbone of a band, yet the better they are, the less you notice them. This is the story of Suzette Quintanilla-Arriaga’s life.

For 17 years, Suzette played in her family’s band. And from behind the drums she watched as her thinner sister stole the spotlight. And that was fine with Suzette, because she was the shy one, and besides, she and Selena were best friends. “We talked about everything. I mean everything,” she says.

Since her sister’s murder, Suzette has not played the drums. “I can’t,” she says. “It just doesn’t feel right to do it without her anymore.”

For a while, Suzette says, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life without her sister. But something inside was pushing her to carry on with the works that had meant so much to Selena, apart from music: her salon, her dream of launching a clothing line, and her dedication to education.

“Before Selena died, I didn’t even have my GED,” Suzette says. “But she was always on my case about that, so I got it, for her. Not a lot of people know this, but Selena was taking university courses toward a business degree when she died. She never wanted to stop pursuing education.”

Though she was initially reluctant to do so, Suzette took the reins of Selena’s nascent clothing line. She hired a designer who understood the singer’s style and together they created the Selena line of hip, trendy, affordable clothes in junior sizes now carried by hundreds of Sears and JCPenney stores. The line sold $10 million worth of merchandise the first year, and last year Sears requested they start a children’s line.

Suzette now oversees about 20 employees, is a new mom, and is going to school part time to learn to be a hairdresser. “It’s something I always wanted to learn to do,” she says. “I’m finally at the point where I feel like I’ve done what I can for my sister, and now it’s time to do something for me.”

As with most of the family members, Suzette has drawn criticism from some who accuse her of capitalizing on her sister’s tragedy. To those people, she says, “I would never have done this if I didn’t know how much Selena had wanted it to happen.”

Chris Perez

Chris Perez won’t talk to reporters about his music and life if they plan to include Selena in the article, according to his record label.

So it is that there are no quotes here from the guitarist and songwriter from Corpus Christi, who got his start playing backup in Los Dinos and ended up falling for the lead singer.

After his wife was murdered, Perez is said to have distanced himself from her family. “I would have done the same thing,” A.B. says. “It’s a pretty healthy thing to do, actually.”

Along with his pal Joe Ojeda, who played keyboards for Los Dinos, Perez put together a band of his own, and began shopping around for a record deal. This was not done to capitalize on the most horrible thing to happen in his life; rather, it was done because Perez is a musician, and always has been, and he could not just lie down and die.

The Chris Perez Band’s debut album, a bilingual collection, hits the shelves on May 18 and the first English-language single will be released to the mainstream rock/pop market.

Like the Quintanilla family, Perez is trying to go on with his life. But there is a seeming dichotomy in his wanting to avoid discussing his late wife.

After all, the album is titled “Resurrection.” And the first Spanish-language single is “Por Que Te Fuistes?”

Translation: Why did you go?