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Selena Cups Join The Variety Of Ways Fans Still Honor The Queen Of Tejano Music

A screen grab of a 1994 video interview with Selena that Smithsonian researchers discovered in 2017.
Fernando Ortiz Jr.
/
Texas Public Radio
A screen grab of a 1994 video interview with Selena that Smithsonian researchers discovered in 2017.

Selena fans have recently enjoyed a blossoming of memorabilia and media dedicated to the slain singer, and now there's one more item for their collection.

Stripes Convenience Stores announced Monday it will offer a set of limited-edition cups celebrating the Queen of Tejano Music.

The company said it partnered with Suzette Quintanilla, Selena's sister, to develop the pop-art-retro-looking design, titled "Queen of Cumbia." It features a black and white sketch of Selena and is the first of three designs to be released in 2019.

The BPA free containers are made for hot and cold beverages, and fans can purchase them at participating Stripes locations beginning Saturday, Feb. 23 at 10 a.m.

The remaining two designs of the collection will be released in March and April.

The cups are the latest way the entertainment and business worlds and new generations of music lovers continue to celebrate Selena. Yolanda Saldivar, the head of her fan club, fatally shot her in Corpus Christi in 1995. Selena was 23.

In 2016, Selena was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame, and Madame Tussauds Hollywood added her to its wax figure collection. In 2017, Selena received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and that same year Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle animation sponsored by Perla Campos, a North Texas native and Google marketing executive who wanted to see a Latina on the website's front page.

Selena's grave in Corpus Christi.
Credit Terry Ross / Wikimedia Commons
/
Wikimedia Commons
Selena's grave in Corpus Christi.

In 2018, grocery store HEB unveiled commemorative reusable shopping bags that sold out in minutes. Also last year, cable news outlet Headline News produced a documentary exploring her murder, and Netflix unveiled a trailerpromoting a new series exploring her coming of age story. They join the 1997 biopic that starred a then-relatively unknown Jennifer Lopez.

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was born in Lake Jackson and grew up in Corpus Christi. She released her first album in 1989, and she quickly became an award-winning recording artist. Her honors included Best Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1987 Tejano Music Awards and Best Mexican-American album at the 1994 Grammys.

In 2017, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History discovered and digitized a previously-unseen video of Selena recalling her Grammy win. A reporter interviewed her at Hemisfair Park in San Antonio before a concert performance.

“We were sitting there when they announced," she said, remembering the moment she won. "I had this huge knot in my stomach, I was so nervous. And when they announced the winner I was so...it was great.”

The video was posted on the National Museum of American History’s YouTube page.

Lauren Terrazas can be reached at lauren@tpr.org and on Twitter at @terrazas_lauren.

Norma Martinez can be reached at norma@tpr.org and on Twitter at @NormDog1. Fernando Ortiz Jr. contributed to this report.

Copyright 2020 Texas Public Radio. To see more, visit .

Lauren Terrazas is an El Paso native and produces "Morning Edition" and "Fronteras" for Texas Public Radio. She began her work in broadcasting as an intern at KTEP, El Paso’s public radio station. While at KTEP, she went to become a production assistant and then chief announcer for "Morning Edition."
Norma Martinez is a native of El Paso and a veteran of public broadcasting. She began volunteering at the El Paso public radio station KTEP as a college student in 1989. She spent a year as a Morning Edition host and reporter at KRWG-FM in Las Cruces, New Mexico, before returning to KTEP as a full-time employee in 1995. At KTEP, Norma served as Morning Edition host, chief announcer, Traffic Director, PSA Director, and host and producer of various local shows.