1994: Amor Prohibido, Selena

By Kristen Paige

“Step, side, close,” my grandmother would say in repeat. The three words she would use to teach me, my sister and my cousins to dance the cumbia. It could be any cumbia that was playing on her adored record player, or favorite radio station, or small, but cherished CD collection. It was likely a Saturday night on Somerset Lane in Texas City, TX. The same home my mom and her five other siblings grew up in.

I didn’t know many of the artists that would come through these speakers, but I did know one. Selena. Growing up, Selena was in my pop star rotation with Madonna and Britney Spears. But unlike the latter artists, Selena was someone who my whole family enjoyed listening to. To me, and people like me, she brought more than music. She brought a familiarity that felt like home.

Nothing gave this feeling more than her 1994 album Amor Prohibido. Only 35 minutes long, but rooted with a depth of many generations past and many more to come. Through the pop melodies and the steadiness of the cumbia beats, each song carries an air of sadness, like we’re enduring a loss together. In “No Me Queda Más” and “Fotos Y Recuerdos,” we’re entranced to look back with heartbreak, yet fond appreciation of love and the memories they brought, whether good or bad. I hear the appeal to assimilate in the first track’s “Oh baby.” I hear the chase for modernity in “Techno Cumbia.” And I hear the familiar in the cumbias and mariachis, staying true to traditional Tejano music. The album is like me, trying to find its place. Adopting and adapting to different cultures through the many genres of new and old. 

The first track, the title track, “Amor Prohibido,” sings the tale of a forbidden love inspired by Selena’s grandparents. It’s easy to think of my own. And not because their love was forbidden, though it has that lasting drama (75 years and counting). But because of the reason behind the forbidden love. A few verses into the track we hear Selena sing the line, “porque somos de distintas sociedades”, which translates to because we are from different societies. I think about this societal pressure a lot. The pressure to assimilate in ways that those before me had to endure, and how it is still making a lasting impact on me and future generations. 

How do you choose? Must I choose? It would seem my Grandparents, or rather, society made that choice for my family. The pressure for assimilation into a new culture — the American culture — was par for survival. What they did not realize in the process of assimilation, they would leave me not in either culture, but somewhere in between the two, lost, and holding onto pieces. Pieces, like my broken Spanish. Like a forbidden love. Like un Amor Prohibido. 

This pressure still lingers three generations past. But now it’s a different pressure. Not, “Am I American enough?” But, “Am I Mexican enough?” It is now part shame and feelings of guilt when I see the face of disappointment as I explain that I can’t speak fluid Spanish. Selena dealt with it herself. She, to her Mexican audiences, was not Mexican enough.

I see my mom and my tias in the album’s ninth track, “Si Una Vez.” I hear them through Selena’s strong, formidable, yet gentle voice and through the comforting mariachi. Silencing and proud. What all the women in my family know and express as tough love. The love we all grew up with. Through the cooking, the dancing, or the kisses of greetings and goodbyes, we were surrounded by the strong women in my life, starting with the matriarch. It was loud and left us with no doubt of its intention.

At the time of Selena’s death, I was too young to understand the real gravity of her loss. To this day, I still remember watching the 1997 film for the first time and running to my mom in tears when she died. And still, almost 30 years later, I sometimes feel like that young girl when I think about her loss.

I wish she were still here, Selena. I am grateful for all she gave us. I still dream of the life she would lead. And I think about how things would be different for many artists and Tejanos. How maybe I would be different. Perhaps I would’ve felt closer to my Mexican heritage growing up, unafraid of societal pressures. Perhaps I would not.

Listening to her music as a youth was satisfying. I may not have understood the artistry of albums, but I understood that music was important because it was always needed at any family gathering. It filled me with ease. Full of that shallow, innocent, childish view. My musical comfort blanket. As a young girl, I loved “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” for its alliteration and melodic beat that made it fun and easy to dance along. And I can still hear my sister teaching me the words of “El Chico Del Apartamento 512.” It was just as enjoyable to sing as it was to brag about my understanding and recall of the song’s simple lyrics.

Now, I listen attentively. Searching for pieces of me, the Chicana me, or the young girl I used to be when I first listened to Selena. Experiencing for perhaps the first time — music and memory and finding meaning in my own life. I listen like I’m searching for clues as though there were a hidden treasure. Listening like it’s my job to experience this piece of my culture. Uplifting this part of me and thus my community.

My grandparents’ house is now up for sale. There are a few offers on it I’m told. I haven’t come to terms that all the memories in that house have already come to pass. The place I had no question of who I am will soon belong to someone else. Now where do we find ourselves if not the homes we make our memories?

In this house I remember the Saturday night dancing with my grandma. I remember my sister teaching me the Spanish words. The loud voices. So many stories repeated. And so much laughing. But mostly in this house, I remember the dreams of all before me. My grandparents, my mother. My tias and tios. In this house, the only two genres we could hear were big band and cumbia. And only one of these could get my grandmother off her feet to swiftly move… step, side, close.

This home has left us to not only question the society we’ve been forced upon, but also those who led us here. What would those before me think of this? Those who have passed? Selena? We’re not lasting beings. Most feelings aren’t permanent. But there’s something immortal about the music Selena brings to those like me. For anyone struggling with a sense of identity. For all those who can dream and thank their ancestors for doing their best for survival so that we could live better lives than they could ever imagine. Amor Prohibido is una vida lost. Suddenly, the memories I have singing “Happy Birthday” in Spanish aren’t just something my family made me and my sister do. The tamales we make every December aren’t just something to eat for the rest of the year. My grandmother teaching me to dance the cumbia and hearing her say, “Step, side, close,” in repeat. The endless rice and beans. And cousins (whose side are they on again?). These aren’t broken pieces. But small pieces of my life, coming to a whole. And I can find them all in Amor Prohibido. The memories may be past, but they’ll stay with me through the tough love in the voices of my tias and abuelos. Harsh, but comforting. Como un amor prohibido.

So maybe, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” was more than a catchy tune. It was us, in awe of ourselves and culture. What generations before endured and through it all; we’re still able to dance. And maybe “Cobarde” was more than a song of betrayal. Maybe it was a warm embrace. Like the reunion of a cousin you adore and just don’t see enough. God knows we have too many. Amor Prohibido. Not only a defining album for Selena but for many like me, searching for their identity and belonging. Crossing the intersectionality of American and Mexican. And being proud of that. Not ashamed or confused. But creating our own sense of familiarity. Just like how it feels to eat tamales we made together on Christmas Eve. And the feeling we get from the sound of our elders saying, “Aye, que linda.”

I don’t understand many of the lyrics in Amor Prohibido. But I understand everything else. A love that was forbidden, or maybe an invitation to find it elsewhere. After all, what is love without belonging? 

From this house, we’ve taken our rhythm with us. Our movements. Desires for love and progress as we look for a new place to call home. A place we’re welcome to be ourselves. Searching, with each step, until realizing that for generations we’ve been creating this place all along. 

Kristen is a third-generation Mexican American from Houston, Texas, living and working in the arts in Columbus, Ohio. She is a romantic, as her father put it, and has never forgotten since. She enjoys writing, hiking, traveling, music and art. You can find her on Instagram.