Selena Quintanilla-Perez was born on April 16th, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. She was simply known as her stage name “Selena”. She was a Mexican-American singer/songwriter and actress. She was often called the Mexican Madonna.

Selena got into music because of her father. Her father was a musician, but he decided to give it up to help support his family. She started by singing to the music that her father would play on his guitar. When Selena was young, her father put her and her siblings into a band called Selena y Los Dinos, which translates to “Selena and the Boys”. The small band played everywhere from street corners to weddings.

At the age of 12, Selena released her first record for Freddie Records. The record wasn’t sold in stores due to the fact that the record label didn’t believe that a young female could sell a record.

When Selena was in 8th grade, her father pulled her out of school. His reasoning of it was because Selena’s performance schedule was getting larger and it was getting more difficult for her to keep up with school. She became homeschooled and began doing a lot of her homework on her tour bus. At the age of 17, she got a diploma from The American School of Correspondence in Chicago, Illinois. She applied to Louisiana State University but did not go.

Selena did a lot of charity work. She visited a lot of the local schools and talked about the importance of the education to the kids. She worked with D.A.R.E, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, and worked much of her free time with the community. She also held a fundraising concert to raise money for AIDS patients and helped with the Hurricane Andrew victims in Florida in 1992.

Selena was killed on March 31st, 1995. Saldivar was an employee for Selena’s clothing stores, and she was the manager for Selena’s fan club. There was a lot of problems with Selena and Sandivar once Selena found out that her “best friend” was stealing money from the fan club and her family. Selena found out that she had lied to her many times in the past, and Selena abandoned her friendship with her. Once day when Selena went to the hotel that Sandivar was staying at, they got into a big argument about documents that Selena needed, and Sandivar would not give them to her. After a while of arguing, Selena turned to leave the hotel room, and Sandivar pulled a gun out of her purse and shot Selena in the back. By the time she got to the local hospital, she was pronounced dead. Now, April 16th in Texas is a holiday, Selena Day.