Selena's Secret

March 3, 1997
The murder of 23-year-old Selena Quintanilla Perez at a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995 was a seismic shock to the Hispanic community in the U.S. and to Mexicans, for she was the most popular Tejano (Tex-Mex) singer, who had won a Grammy and whose records had earned $50 million by 1994. Accused of the shooting was Yolanda Saldivar, the founder of the Selena fan club, a confidante and business associate of the singer who was branching out into the fashion boutique world. Arraras, the anchor of Univision TV's Primer Impacto, won the confidence of both Selena's and Yolanda's families, thereby obtaining many news-making interviews, chief among them a prison talk with Yolanda after she was found guilty and sentenced to life. Throughout the trial and afterward, Yolanda made reference to a "secret" that would explain everything and supposedly exonerate her, or at least justify her action. She never revealed it, and Arraras claims that it can be discovered by reading between the lines of her book. To those not trained in that skill, it appears that there was in fact no secret, so the book's promised revelation is much ado about nothing. But the author does excel at self-aggrandizement presented in a flat, journalistic style.