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Selenawas honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 63rd annual GRAMMY Awards on March 15. The late Tejano icon is one of six legendary singers that will be recognized for their accomplishments on “Music’s Biggest Night”.
Selena’s sister,Suzette Quintanilla, spoke about the honor withDeidre BeharofEntertainment Tonightbefore the 2021 GRAMMYs in avideo posted on March 14. Not only does Suzette react to the honor, but she also gives fans a close-up look at the award and shares where the Quintanilla family is keeping it.
The drummer forLos Dinosalso recalls the night Selena won her first GRAMMY award in 1994 and shares her favorite memories from the experience. Suzette praises the Recording Academy and Selena’s fans for keeping her legacy alive over the past 25 years, following her untimely death. The entrepreneur explains why Selena’s legacy is still so strong and resonates so strongly with generations old and new.
“Twenty-five years later and who would have ever thought that she would be honored with this Lifetime Achievement Award? I’m very proud, and I know she would be also in regards to the fact that we are Mexicanos-Americanos, we’re Mexican-Americans, and this is happening,” Suzette stated. “It’s huge. It’s really huge for a different couple of reasons. More importantly, the fact that her career and her life is still being celebrated so many years later.”
“I think she would be over the moon. I think she would be very giddy about it. I think that she would probably have her social media handles and she would probably be posting tons of photos with it, I’m sure,” she continued. “I go back to the other part of Selena, of her being a role model. And I think that it shines a huge light on that. That with hard work and dedication and with your family behind you and everything, that you can do so much. [It] doesn’t matter where you come from as long as you have that drive and that passion and you can succeed.”
As fans and the Quintanilla family continue Selena’s legacy with her music, Netflix’s Selena: The Series and more, Suzette is in awe of how the world continues to embrace her sister.
“There’s a new generation that’s embracing Selena,” Suzette marveled. “She is a great representation of who we are as Mexican-Americans. She’s a great role model. She is an amazing singer, performer. You can’t ask for more than that…We live in a time, also, where I have the luxury of going online and I can look at her. Most people that lose loved ones, they don’t have that.”
“And I think that this award, I hope that the younger generation, the younger Latinas, young [people] overall, they can go back and they can look at this and think, ‘Wow, she’s still doing it and she’s not even here. She’s been gone for 25 years,'” Suzette noted. “And that’s a powerful, powerful message. And I hope that that resonates in our youth. I really do.”
Selena won her first GRAMMY for Best Mexican-American Album for Selena Live! at the 36th GRAMMY Awards in 1994, marking the first time a female Tejano artist won the category.
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