Selena Quintanilla Perez needs no introduction, especially here in Texas. Her voice, her energy, and her undeniable star power are etched into the cultural landscape of Texas and beyond. Selena was more than just an artist. Selena’s music was everywhere for us living in Texas and the broader Southwest. Her songs were catchy, instantly recognizable. She was and is the standard for Tejano music in the late 80s and early 90s, the artist everyone else was compared to. Even now, decades later, her music evokes a sense of nostalgia and connection.
There’s an iconic Selena song that I love called ¿Qué creías?. It's just a great song, but Selena also performed it in a very specific way. During her performances of ¿Qué creías? — a passionate ballad in which the female protagonist scorns her unfaithful partner — Selena would ask for a male volunteer from the crowd to play the part of the disloyal ex-boyfriend, who she would serenade on stage during the song. She did this at most of her shows.
In this one performance, which luckily lives on YouTube, Selena sings to this young man. Really, she’s grilling him:
¿Qué creías, qué te iba a perdonar?
¿Qué me iba a olvidar del daño que me hiciste?…
¿Túuuuu qué creías, túuuuu qué creíaaaaas?
The crowd roars. The man is bashful and seemingly in awe.
I’ve watched this viral video a million times, but I recently realized that this performance happened right here in the Permian Basin. This surprised me. Seeing Selena’s name alongside the Permian Basin sparked a curiosity that quickly blossomed into a full blown obsession.
Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, nearly 700 miles away from this region, my understanding of far West Texas was limited to say the least. Oil fields, maybe? Big skies, definitely. My first real introduction to Marfa and West Texas was in 2011 when I performed with my San Antonio-based punk cumbia electro band Erekeecludi y Los Dinos (our name included a nod to Selena’s original band name) at Marfa Book Co. on Highland Ave, sharing the bill with Japanther (shoutout to Tim Johnson for booking us).
My perception of West Texas, initially, was one of stark contrasts. The mountains were stunning and the vastness was awe-inspiring, but there was also a sense of otherness. Beautiful natural landscapes juxtaposed with an art world that often felt inaccessible. And the Permian seemed, in a way, even more foreign, with its expansive oil fields and the long shadow of booms and busts. It felt a world away from the culture I knew in South Texas and The Rio Grande Valley.
And then, I rediscovered the Selena ¿Qué creías? Midland video. I can’t even recall when or where I first stumbled upon it, perhaps in the 2010s on Tumblr, my archive of obsessions on the internet. But this particular video stuck in my consciousness. It felt strangely familiar, a resonance with a piece of my identity that seemed geographically distant from my new surroundings.
The more I thought about it, the more this video felt rooted in my own experience of connection through music. Selena made connections across the world that transcended borders. And to see her presence associated with Midland, a place that initially felt so culturally unfamiliar and distant, sparked a profound realization. This place, West Texas that felt somewhat alien, actually held a familiar echo and shared history. Tejano music, the soundtrack of my upbringing, had a presence here, and had left its mark on the regional soundscape.
It was a revelation, a quiet but powerful understanding: we are here. We have been here. This feeling of otherness I sometimes experienced began to soften, replaced by a sense of unexpected belonging. People told me stories about seeing Selena in West Texas– someone told me she performed in Marfa and Fort Stockon, too. Learning about Selena’s connection to this region from this YouTube video felt like finding a piece of home in an unfamiliar place. West Texas, turns out, wasn’t just about art installations and oil, it also held a vibrant, perhaps less visible, Tejano heritage. And the gathering of all of those people for Tejano music was not random — in fact, it’s almost naive to be shocked that the crowd was there for Tejano music and Selena. Of course they were there. They’ve been there.
The video left me with so many thoughts and questions. That performance in that stadium. Who was there? How did it feel to be serenaded by Selena? What other Tejano artists rolled by? What were Tejano 90s concerts like in Midland and Odessa? Did Selena pass through Marfa? Were you there? I’m curious to hear your stories. Did you see Selena perform in Midland or Odessa or Marfa? Was there and is there a thriving Tejano music scene in Midland and Odessa that I’m only just beginning to glimpse?
This discovery feels deeply personal. The idea that Selena, a cornerstone staple of my own Tejano cultural heritage, had graced stages in Midland and Marfa felt like uncovering a hidden layer of my own identity. It was like finding a familiar hum in an unexpected place, a thread connecting me to a land I’m still learning to love.
My initial curiosity about the Selena video has now morphed into something more profound. It is about belonging, about finding unexpected connections to a place and its history through music. This exploration has made me wonder why I find connections in the most unlikely spots. How is it that some of the best music lately comes from the most unexpected cities. Whether it’s Y La Bamba in Portland, Yahrizia y su Esencia from Yakima, Washington, or the Tigres del Norte from Silicon Valley. Music always seems to pop up in the most unexpected places. But again, it's not random that this music exists in these places: again, we’ve always been here.
This exploration has taught me that belonging isn’t always about where you’re from; it’s about where you see yourself. And sometimes, you see yourself reflected in unexpected places.
Endnotes
- The Caló word for this week is yonke. It comes from the English word junk. Unlike the English use of the term, however, it applies as much to animate as to inanimate objects, including man-made objects, unwanted plants, cultural kitsch and even people. A pichirilo that won’t run at all anymore is yonke. Weeds and unpopular songs are yonke. A chirion former boyfriend or girlfriend you don’t wanna see anymore? Yonke.
- Local Marfa band Baby Steps will be performing live on Saturday, May 3rd at Maintenant Marfa located at 1806 Rabbits Road. Adam Bork and Slug Hug will be the opening acts for the concert which is open to the public and starts at 6pm. Click here for more information.
- Did you miss your favorite local DJ's show this week? We understand, life gets busy sometimes. That's why you can always find our music shows archived on Mixcloud — so you never miss a beat!
- Check out this article from our friends at Texas Monthly on the struggle for fresh water in West Texas towns along the Rio Grande. In an area nicknamed the Forgotten Reach, where even the river is regularly running dry, how do residents in unincorporated communities manage the water supply?
- Congress is back in session and may soon vote on whether to pass the White House's proposal to rescind funding for public media stations across the country. Protect My Public Media makes it easy to contact your reps and let them know you support funding public media.
