From Futuromiria, it's Latino USA, I'm Maria Inohosa.

Today, Selena and Abraham, an intimate portrait of the Tejano star and her father, who pushed

her to become an artist and an icon.

Today is part of the Anything for Selena podcast, which is a collaboration between WBUR and Futurom

studios.

Journalist Maria Garcia is going to tell us her story as she began to report on the lasting

legacy of Selena Quintanilla.

Maria's reporting begins not with Selena herself, but with Abraham Quintanilla, Selena's father,

manager and mentor, who's known for guarding his daughter's legacy with an iron fist.

I'll hand things over now to Maria as she takes us on this journey.

In early March 2020, I was on a plane.

On my way from Boston to Corpus Christi, Texas, Selena's hometown.

It was the early days of 2020, the before.

The country was still flying, people were still out in the street.

I'd gone dancing the night before, albeit a plane hands sanitizer on every 10 minutes.

So I was tired on the plane, but I couldn't sleep.

I was antsy, my stomach wasn't not, and it wasn't just because of the impending pandemic.

I was on my way to a month-long reporting trip in Texas, interviewing scholars, fans and

all kinds of people for this podcast.

Except this podcast, of course, didn't exist yet.

And that's because the whole theme hinged on the first leg of this trip.

This is when I hope to meet with Abraham Guintanilla, Selena's father, whose notoriously protective

...