Made in America.' Immortal through tragedy Ruben Cubillos, a 65-year-old musician and former advertising executive, who worked closely with Selena, goes one step further, saying that with its power to bring so many influences together, Tejano is 'an American art form. And that's something that we owe to Selena,' Abel told DW. I feel like all my Anglo friends are Tejanos as well because they grow up immersed in this culture. It's the Anglos who have been Tejanosized. 'And it's not that Tejano was Americanized. People have embraced each other's influences. This cross-pollination of music has since made Tejano culture the signature of South Texas: 'Whenever you go to any festival today, you can see all of the influences the cultures have had on each other, whether it's the music, the food or the beer. It's now a thriving mini-metropolis: Corpus Christi used to be a fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico a century ago Bridging cultures through music

German settlers in particular spread quickly throughout the region, as they were among the few who were allowed to own and cultivate land - which was considered to be an incentive to move out to the Old West.

And they brought their accordions, waltzes and polka rhythms with them. Selena's music has indeed long become the soundtrack of South Texas at large, but the roots of Tejano actually lay mostly in Europe: In the mid-to-late 19th century, German, Polish and Czech immigrants arrived in Texas to work on the plains north of the Rio Grande. Selena was rising through the ranks of this male-dominated field right in front of you, breaking the barriers, and doing her own thing. 'We saw her evolve at a time when it was all traditional Tejano music. The 33-year-old actor now lives in Los Angeles, but says he thinks of her almost every day. My face just lights up every time I see her name,' says Selena superfan Raymond Abel, who grew up in Corpus Christi. In addition to a family-run Selena museum, which welcomes visitors to admire her many awards and stage costumes, an annual festival has also been attracting thousands of people from across the US and beyond to Corpus Christi to celebrate Selena's music and her contributions to Hispanic culture in recent years. Despite her small frame, Selena was larger than life (image from 1993)

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