Selenidad

Selenidad is a book written by Deborah Paredez that explores the afterlife effects that the death of Tejana music sensation Selena had and its connection with Latina/o identity and Latinidad in the United States during the 1990s. Paredez describes the meaning of Selenidad and the connection between latinidad; the process of Latina/o identity formation, in the United States.

Selenidad functions a significant mythology to express transnational Latina/o culture between national borders. Selenidad rose from the nativist conception during the 1990s in the United States. Paredez argues that

Selena's death galvanized Latina/o efforts to publicly mourn collective tragedies (such as approved anti Latino legislation in California, Proposition 187 and Proposition 229) and to envision a brighter future."

Through the analysis of Selena's commemorations and celebrations of her life, Paredez looks into how the acts of remembering Selena parallel with Latina identity production in both body and in memory.

Paredez book introduces the term Selenidad to describe the dynamic and vibrant afterlife of Selena and her significance to the Latina/o community. Selena forged a path for Latina women to help understand what it meant to be Latino in the 1990s. Latina women were able to position themselves within the Selena pathway that facilitated their becoming of a Latina. They identified with Selena's voluptuous body, never-dyed hair, working-class ethics and aesthetics, and her humble upbringings, qualities in a performer that were unique and remained unchanged throughout her career. Selena's "voluptuous" body challenged the normative ideological image of American super-stars.Selena's physical hyperfemininity and her costumed body, combines masculine and feminine essentials in an effort to break away from the traditional normative gender. Through Selenidad Latinas gain a sense of representation in mainstream American media.

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