Students can honor and celebrate the “Queen of Tejano Music,” Selena Quintanilla, alongside Student Activities in a week filled with events, such as singing and dancing to her most popular music or cosplaying her iconic outfits.
Elianey Moya, program coordinator for Student Activities, said the department came up with the idea of having themed weeks for the UTRGV community to be engaged throughout the rest of the semester.
“Since the transition to online for all students and the majority of staff, we wanted to keep the students still engaged, so they felt, like, a sense of belonging and they can get their minds off of the whole COVID-19 that’s going around,” Moya said.
She said this week’s theme is Selena because she was a Tejano celebrity and her birthday would be Thursday.
According to the Texas State Historical Association website, Selena Quintanilla Perez was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson. She became a Tejano music star but was fatally shot in the back by fan club founder Yolanda Saldivar on March 31, 1995.
Moya said Student Activities is collaborating with the Campus Activities Board and the Civic Engagement Alliance to host several events throughout the week.
On Monday, students were encouraged to post their favorite Selena’s GIFs on Instagram and tag the UTRGV Student Activities account, @utrgvstudentactivities.
Today, students can submit a Selena-inspired picture or TikTok. The fan favorite will win a free pizza.
“We decided a free pizza just because in the [1997 “Selena”] movie, it does say, like, pizza is Selena’s favorite [food],” Moya said.
The Civic Engagement Alliance will present “Coffee and Conversations: Let’s Talk about Immigration” from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“We felt like it tied into ‘Selena Week’ just because she was Mexican-American,” Moya said.
Alexandra Smith-Macias, a political science junior and president of the Civic Engagement Alliance, said this event is not a debate, but a way to express each other’s views in a healthy and respectful environment.
“There’s an issue advisory that will have three different points of views,” Smith-Macias said. “We will spend 15 to 20 minutes discussing each issue or each option.”
The three main topics will be welcoming immigrants, enforcing the laws and slowing down immigration.
Students can RSVP on the Civic Engagement Alliance VLink on ASSIST. An hour before the events, they will send an email with the Zoom link.
The Campus Activities Board opened the “Anything for Selenas” contest. It will award a Nintendo Switch Lite to a student who meets one of the different categories of the contest by the 3 p.m. Thursday deadline.
The categories are dancing or lip syncing to a Selena song, uploading a picture dressed like Selena or creating a portrait of Selena in any type of media.
The entries should be shared on the student’s Instagram post or stories and tagged on the @utrgvcab account. For every entry students submit, their name will be entered into a drawing.
“We wanted to honor Selena,” said Daniela Ramirez, a Mexican American Studies senior and Campus Activities Board cultural committee chair. “We believe she is a very big artist here in the [Rio Grande] Valley that represents our culture … Tex-Mex.”
Ramirez also said she believes celebrating Selena is something that students would want to do.
“Now that we can’t physically be on campus … we’re trying to still encourage and engage students into participating,” she said. “I think this is a really good event where students can, like, showcase their different styles either singing, dancing, dressing up, drawing, creating.”
From 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday, Student Activities and the Spirit Program will host a Selena Trivia via Zoom. Students can RSVP on Student Activities VLink before the noon Friday deadline.
Asked what students can expect from this week, Moya replied, a “fun-filled week.”
“The goal is, kind of just, to keep the students motivated and engaged with student activities just so through all that is happening we can still come together,” she said.
