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How Selena Gomez Embraces Her Mexican Heritage
Selena Gomez recently turned 31. The singer, actress, and producer has been a force in the entertainment industry for over two decades, and she has always been proud of her Mexican heritage.
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Selena was born in Grand Prairie, Texas. Her father, Ricardo Joel Gomez, and her mother, Mandy Teefey, were teenage lovers who went their separate ways when she was 5. Although Gomez lived with her mom, who is of Italian descent, Gomez retained a connection to her Mexican heritage by sharing weekends, holidays, and quinceañeras with her father, whose parents first migrated to Texas from Monterrey, Mexico, during the 1970s.
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She has stated that she was fluent in Spanish until she was around 6 or 7, but then lost her proficiency. As Gomez’s career took off, she continued to embrace her Mexican heritage. In 2011, she released Spanish-language versions of her hit songs “A Year Without Rain” and “Who Said.”
While she was featured on DJ Snake’s 2018 club smash with Ozuna and Cardi B, “Taki Taki,” and opposite J Balvin in 2019 on Tainy and Benny Blanco’s “I Can’t Get Enough,” she left most of the Spanish-language lyrics to her Latinx co-stars as she felt that she wasn’t ready to sing in Spanish.
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During the creation of “Living Undocumented,” a docuseries released on Netflix in 2019, which follows the lives of eight immigrant families residing in the United States, and in light of the detrimental, anti-immigrant discourse that pervaded the 2020 presidential election, Gomez experienced a shift in perspective regarding her diminishing proficiency in Spanish. Instead of perceiving it as a barrier, she began recognizing it as a chance to foster connections and forge meaningful relationships.
She said in a new interview with Dazed: “I’m always very vocal about my background, as far as me talking about immigration and my grandparents having to come across the border illegally. I wouldn’t have been born [otherwise]. I can’t even imagine what these kids being separated from their families are going through. It’s something that is going to traumatize them for the rest of their lives. And it just seems animalistic.”
In an op-ed published by Time Magazine in 2019, the singer recounts how her aunt crossed the border from Mexico to the United States in the back of a truck in the 1970s, before other family members followed later: “Over the past four decades, members of my family have worked hard to gain United States citizenship. Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day, and I never forget how blessed I am to have been born in this country thanks to my family and the grace of circumstance.”
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In 2021, Selena released her first full-length Spanish-language EP, “Revelación.” The EP was a critical and commercial success, and it earned Gomez a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Album. Before recording the album, she hired a Spanish-language coach to help freshen her Spanish vocabulary and loosen her accent to better roll with the music.
An intricate fusion of American R&B, electro-pop, and reggaeton, “Revelación” showcases a diverse array of musical styles. In addition to her second collaboration with DJ Snake, the EP also includes captivating duets with emerging Puerto Rican MCs Myke Towers and Rauw Alejandro. Guided by Tainy, the acclaimed producer who has earned Grammy nominations for his work with artists like Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and, most recently, Dua Lipa, the six-song EP promises to deliver a unique and memorable musical experience.
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