‘Anything for Selena’ Podcast Explores Selena Quintanilla’s Legacy

Selena’s legacy goes beyond her music as she remains the most prominent Tejano music star 25 years after her death. She’s a Mexican-American icon who made an impact through her music. Her authenticity reflected the experience of what it meant to be Latinx in the U.S.  The layers that make up her legacy is the foundation for a new podcast — “Anything for Selena” — coming Jan. 2021 and hosted by journalist and self-proclaimed “Queer Chola Fronteriza” Maria Garcia.

“This journey begins at the border, a place in the in-between where, for a long time, I felt divided in two. Then I discovered her, red lips, brown skin, big hoops; She was magnetic no matter what side of the border she was on. I was a young kid, but I remember what it felt like seeing that one of us had made it, and she brought us with her,” she says in the trailer for the podcast. “Selena’s legacy has shown me some of the biggest revelations about my identity, my community, my country.”

The series weaves Maria’s personal story as a queer, first-generation Mexican immigrant with cultural analysis, history, and politics to explore what loving and memorializing Selena today really means. The 10-episode podcast, produced in partnership with Futuro Studios (part of Maria Hinojosa’s Futuro Media),  will be paired with Spanish-language companion episodes.

“I was 7 when I discovered Selena, 9 when she tragically died, and 11 when her biopic was released. Selena defined my childhood, and her legacy has stayed with me into adulthood. She is this cornerstone that I come back to when I need to remember who I am,”  Garcia said in a press release. “She represented transcendence without compromise. She showed us our stories matter. We matter. I hope this podcast does the same.”

Garcia will explore how Selena represented the first time mainstream society in the U.S. acknowledged a woman who sounded and looked like her.  She’ll also discuss Selena’s murder and how the aftermath marked a shift in Latinx representation and collectively affected the Latinx community throughout the U.S.

Garcia announced the podcast on Twitter with a series of tweets sharing its significance to her and what it means for such a podcast to exist in the first place.

I’ve thought so much about what to write as we announce Anything For Selena, the biggest project of my career, the podcast that has brought me to my knees, to tears, to heartache and healing. Thread: https://t.co/KjEYOnKLkL

— Maria Elena Garcia (@NopalitaMami) October 13, 2020

“But maybe, our stories just haven’t been reflected all that much in the narrative podcast world? I hope ‘Anything For Selena’ helps move the dial. Our stories matter. There is an audience for them. We are not niche. We belong here.”