CHAPTER ONESMALL-TOWN GIRL
“We knew we wanted her as a star.”
—GARY MARSH, president of entertainment for Disney Channels Worldwide
It’s raining in a small town between Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas. The water gathers in puddles outside a house in Grand Prairie, number 205, where Selena Gomez knocks on a white door and waits.
This is the home she grew up in.
Plink-Plonk-Plink
Raindrops fall onto the mailbox, sliding off the side and adding to the wet patch on the grass.
Plip-Plop-Plip
The rain splatters onto the cement steps leading up to the door.
Selena recalls putting her hands into the wet cement on the sidewalk when she was five. She remembers her nana sitting with friends, listening to music and sipping iced tea.
“I visit this place every chance I get,” she says, and explains how she used to splash around the yard during rainstorms just like this one. And when it wasn’t raining, “it smelled like fresh-cut grass.”
Selena may have left this home, but it is still very much a part of her. She knocks a second time, but it’s clear nobody is home.
Selena’s mother, Mandy Teefey, has some Italian ancestry, and her father, Ricardo Joel Gomez, is of Mexican descent. Both were sixteen when Selena was born, and her mother gave up everything to support her daughter.
“We didn’t have a lot growing up,” Selena says.
Her grandparents helped take care of her while her parents finished their schooling. Family meant everything to them, and they were willing to do whatever they could to support Selena and her parents.
But raising a child at such a young age was difficult for Mandy and Joel. It put a tremendous strain on their marriage, until the marriage fell apart when Selena was five. Her mom and dad divorced, and Selena stayed with her mother. Her mom struggled to make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck and working multiple jobs at a time to provide for her daughter.
“She was really strong around me,” Selena says. “Having me at sixteen had to have been a big responsibility. She gave up everything for me, had three jobs, supported me, sacrificed her life for me. My mom was always doing a hundred million things just to make me happy.”
And Selena was happy. She was surrounded by love and a family that supported her. But the person Selena has become is a woman forged by more than a happy childhood. She is no stranger to the challenges of transformation, the struggle of finding who you are and living that truth. And it is precisely that effort that makes Selena the star she is today.
* * *
Born on July 22, 1992, Selena Marie Gomez began her life in Grand Prairie, Texas, a city with a population of close to 200,000 people. Almost half the population is of Hispanic or Latinx descent.
Every year, the town hosts Prairie Lights, a two-mile-long winter attraction with more than three hundred million lights. For forty days, angels, elves, penguins, reindeer, snowmen, stars, the world’s longest tunnel of lights, and hundreds of others features are on display as part of this very unique holiday experience.
Another claim to fame for Grand Prairie are some of the best national parks and recreation venues in the area. That and, of course, being the birthplace of Selena!
SELENA QUINTANILLA PÉREZ was a Grammy Award–winning Tejano music superstar who rose to fame in the early 1990s. Born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas, Selena Quintanilla’s musical talent was evident by the age of six. When the family relocated to Corpus Christi, Selena Quintanilla and her father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., formed Selena y Los Dinos, the band that led to Selena Quintanilla’s meteoric rise to fame.
A native of Texas, Selena Quintanilla became known as the “Queen of Tejano Music”—Tejano music is also known as Tex-Mex music—a style that fused Mexican norteño music with European and US influences, distinguished primarily by orchestration and usually featuring the accordion as lead instrument. Selena Quintanilla also became a fashion icon, developing a signature style that cemented her as the “Tejano Madonna.” Beloved by many, Selena’s legacy and impact remains strong, almost thirty years after her untimely and tragic death in 1995.
Her parents named her after one of their favorite singers: Selena.
Like her namesake, Selena Gomez would go on to become one of the most influential Latinx artists of all time. Though young Selena Gomez didn’t know it then, she was just starting off on her extraordinary journey.
As a young girl, Selena was always sensitive, thoughtful, and kind. She was also fearless, never shying away from doing what she thought was right or from helping others, even when she was afraid.
Her capacity for empathy was captured perfectly in a photograph taken for the local Grand Prairie paper.
It was Selena’s first day of preschool, a day of great hopes and expectations, fears, and tearful goodbyes. Colorful cutouts adorned the walls; books eagerly awaited the hands of little children; crayons and scissors and glue were ready to create epic art projects.
Selena’s heart beat wildly as she prepared to embark on this new adventure. She took a breath, grinned, and bid her mom goodbye, stepping valiantly into the new classroom. Off to the side and all alone sat a tearful child, a fellow classmate who was not quite as fearless as young Selena.
Flash!
A camera captured the scene: little Selena offering comfort to another who shared her fears and needed a friend to lean on. In a time of great change and uncertainty, Selena was able to reach out to friends who needed her strength and comfort.
As Selena grew up, she found different ways to offer comfort to those less fortunate than her.
Even though Selena and her mom had so little, “I remember always being reminded that people had less than we did,” Selena says. “My mom would run out of gas all of the time, and we’d sit there and have to go through the car and get quarters and help her get gas.” Or they would have to walk to the dollar store to get dollar spaghetti for dinner.
Yet, despite their own fragile situation, Selena and her mom would volunteer at soup kitchens on Thanksgiving and regularly go through her closet to find clothes to donate.
The habit of kindness and goodwill toward others that began when Selena was a young girl has become a defining feature of Selena as an adult—guiding her through the many trials and tribulations she has encountered throughout her thirty years.
* * *
Back in the white house in Grand Prairie, Selena explains that her interest in acting was first inspired by watching her mom prepare for theater productions as a stage actress in Dallas. Selena’s dad was a DJ, so as a child, she was always surrounded by creativity. This instilled in her a deep love of performing arts.
It didn’t take long for her love to transform the family living room into a lively stage where Selena would host concert performances or beauty pageants for her family. But soon, what started as small family-only performances evolved into auditioning for various TV roles …
And the opportunity of a lifetime!
Barney & Friends was a hit children’s television series that launched in 1992. The series’ star was Barney, a friendly purple dinosaur who taught important educational and moral concepts.
The series also featured a green triceratops, Baby Bop, and her brother, BJ, a yellow protoceratops. The dinosaurs interacted with a number of adult characters, such as Mother Goose, along with more than one hundred children who appeared as guests over the course of fourteen seasons.
Lights!
Camera!
Action!
Every episode of the show began with a group of kids playing together and imagining that Barney—a cute stuffed animal—would magically come to life as a real dinosaur. Barney and the other dinosaur friends would then delve into a specific topic or theme to be explored that day through songs and dance with the guest children and adult actors.
Beloved by many, Barney & Friends taught viewers many important social and emotional skills. For example, early episodes talked about different ways children can use their imagination and what makes families so wonderful. Some episodes dealt with more practical matters, such as safety when crossing streets or talking to strangers. The show even ventured into conversations about how to be healthy, how to navigate complicated emotions, and how to deal with challenging personal situations.
As luck would have it, Barney & Friends filmed in Carrollton, a suburb near Dallas and just a thirty-minute drive from Grand Prairie.
TALENT SEARCH!
Representatives for Barney & Friends are looking for young talent to join the show. If you are a boy or girl between the ages of 10 and 17 years old and you are interested in acting, singing, or dancing, please contact us for more information!
When Selena was ten, she answered a casting call to be one of the show’s child actors. At the audition she met Demi Lovato.
DEMI LOVATO is a singer, songwriter, and actor born on August 20, 1992. Like Selena, they got their start on Barney & Friends and rose to fame after starring as aspiring musician Mitchie Torres in the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock.
Selena and Demi tried out for a guest spot on the show, and both were selected to appear in the series in 2002. Selena would portray the character of Gianna, a young girl of Mexican-Italian descent, very similar to her own background.
In Selena’s first episode as Gianna, she, Barney, and BJ teach Baby Bop about proper manners. In another episode, the friends direct traffic, teaching viewers about stop and go. Other episodes with Gianna taught children about instruments, seasons, sharing, and the importance of friends and family. In the very last episode in which Selena portrayed Gianna, the friends celebrated Barney’s birthday.
Being on Barney & Friends was a huge change for Selena, a young performer who had never before done any professional acting and knew very little about the film and television industry. Up until then, she had only ever watched her mother perform in community theater. But Selena embraced this new role with a fierce curiosity to learn and the courage to grow, appearing in thirteen episodes of Barney & Friends between 2002 and 2004 (during the show’s seventh and eighth seasons).
Perhaps most people would have felt intimidated under these circumstances, stressed by the long hours and demanding schedule of working on a show like this. But not Selena. Her passion for acting, and her fearless ability to embrace new things, made her feel as if this wasn’t even work.
For her it was a blast! “You’re on set with a big purple dinosaur and dancing and having a great time,” she said in an interview.
During the two years Selena starred on Barney & Friends, she learned everything she could about acting and the TV and film industry. She also continued auditioning for other roles and eventually landed a small speaking role in the film Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, as well as guest starring in various other TV programs.
KINDS OF ROLES IN FILM AND TELEVISION
In film and television, there are different jobs an actor can have and receive credit for. Some of these include:
• BACKGROUND TALENT: This refers to performers, also called extras, who appear in the background and help give the scene a more realistic feel. They typically have very small, non-speaking roles.
• DAY PLAYER: These are actors with few speaking parts and who only appear in one or two scenes. For example, a day player could be someone who is being interviewed by a main character.
• SERIES REGULAR: A series regular is part of the main cast for a show, contracted to work for a specific period of time (which can be a month or multiple years) on a show. They are considered to be part of the main storyline, so their character is important. However, that doesn’t mean they will appear in every episode.
• RECURRING: These are performers who appear in multiple episodes in a single season or throughout the whole series. They are not necessarily a main character or series regular, but they appear more frequently than a day player.
• GUEST STAR: A guest star is a well-known actor who appears in a show as a special performance. They usually appear in one (or only a few) episodes, and their characters often play an important role in the storyline.
• CAMEO: A cameo refers to a brief appearance or voice performance by a well-known actor in a show or movie.
Then, when she was ten, Selena attended a nationwide Disney talent search. With lines upon lines of talented actors from across the country—everyone eager for a shot at their dream—it’s easy to get discouraged and lose hope. But Selena was not at all discouraged. She leaped at the opportunity and auditioned.
Copyright © 2023 by We Are All Human Foundation
