Selena Quintanilla's Father Lost His Job and Was Applying for Food Stamps When a Chance Encounter Changed Everything
- - Selena Quintanilla's Father Lost His Job and Was Applying for Food Stamps When a Chance Encounter Changed Everything
Lizzie HymanNovember 21, 2025 at 3:40 AM
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A.B. Quintanilla Instagram
The Quintanilla Family. From left: Selena, A.B., Suzette, Abraham and Marcella. -
Before Selena Quintanilla shot to stardom, her family endured many years of trials and tribulations, often struggling to put food on the table
"It was hard times, I’m not gonna deny that. I couldn’t find a job," her father Abraham says in the new documentary Selena y Los Dinos, reflecting on a low point for the family before Selena was discovered
Selena y Los Dinos is now available to stream on Netflix
Selena Quintanilla became one of the most influential Mexican American singers of the late 20th century before she was shot and killed in 1995 at age 23 — but her rise to stardom came only after years of hard work and bad breaks.
In the new Netflix documentary Selena y Los Dinos, the Queen of Tejano Music’s family opens up about the trials and tribulations they faced. After opening a restaurant in Jackson, Texas, despite having “no experience” in the business, Abraham Quintanilla began having his children perform for customers as Selena y Los Dinos.
“I built a little dance floor and a little stage,” he says in the documentary. “And people would get up and dance on the little dance floor.”
The restaurant, which Abraham, 86, describes as “a wonderful time in our life,” struggled after an oil-drilling downturn devastated the local economy. “We hung on, trying not to lose our restaurant,” Marcella Quintanilla, 81, recalls. “And we had to close it down. Of course, that also affected our home. We were losing our home, also. We finally had to move out.”
Quintanilla Family/Netflix
Selena Quintanilla (center) performing with her father, sister and brother.
Abraham remembers just how dire things became. “Whatever money I had had been invested in the restaurant, and I’m broke,” he says. “So Marcella says, ‘We gotta go get some food stamps.'…"
"This big, old, heavyset woman, as soon as we walked in, she saw Selena," he continues. "She said, ‘Look! It’s the little girl that sings at the restaurant.’ And when she said that, I stopped and I said, ‘I think we’re in the wrong place,’ and I made a U-turn and walked out. I said, ‘I’m not going back in there.’ ”
With no other options, the family moved in with Abraham’s brother in Corpus Christi. “We’re 13 people living in one house, which is crazy to think about,” Selena’s brother A.B., 61, recalls. In a recorded interview shown in the documentary, Selena herself explains, “We lost everything, and for a long time, it was very difficult putting food on the table.”
Determined to rebuild, Abraham, who had been a professional musician in the '50s and '60s, turned back to what he knew best. “It was hard times, I’m not gonna deny that. I couldn’t find a job here. So I told my wife, Marcella, ‘Look, the only other thing I know is music. So I’m gonna start booking it,’ ” he says. “They were already getting good at what they were doing. And people really enjoyed that. And so I knew that there was something that they had that was extra. And Selena was an added — a completely added attraction. She was the star.”
A.B. Quintanilla/Instagram ; Arlene Richie/Getty
Suzette and A.B. Quintanilla with their parents Abraham and Marcella in June 2021 (left); Selena at the Grammys in 1994.
Even though the Quintanilla kids grew up speaking English, Abraham decided their future was in Tejano music, given Corpus Christi’s large Spanish-speaking population. “It takes a person that knows the business,” Marcella says. “He had that experience already, and he knew what he had to do with their talent.” A.B., adds, “We started our hustle grind again, trying to find musicians to build Los Dinos back up.”
Everything changed when Abraham brought Selena to Cara Records in San Antonio. “At first, they were skeptical because it’s a girl — and a young girl. I said, ‘Well, let’s give it a try one time,’ and we recorded a song,” he recalls. “When [Tejano producer Manny Guerra] heard the song, he said, ‘Hey! Bring me a contract over here,’ and he signed Selena right there.”
Brian “Red” Moore, who worked for Guerra, remembers being struck by the group’s talent. “I think the thing that made them different to begin with was their youth. They were still just kids,” he says. “But grown musicians that had been doing it for years were not at the stage that Selena and her band were at.”
TARA ZIEMBA/AFP/Getty
From left: Chris Perez, A.B., Suzette, Marcella and Abraham at Selena's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2017.
Ultimately, Selena was grateful for her father’s perseverance. “You have to sacrifice something in life in order to get ahead. I lost a lot of my youth, traveling professionally with my family,” she says in a recorded interview. “At the same time, you don’t understand when you’re that young, but I look at life now, and I’m very thankful that my father started us out that young.”
Selena y Los Dinos is now streaming on Netflix.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
