What an April Fool's joke

While most of the campus and the nation celebrate the Day of Fools and laugh really hard at those outrages pranks that would be so wonderful if true (i.e. UH Provost Jack Ivancevich announcing his resignation), some of us aren't laughing that much, if at all. Some of us are, instead, crying and wishing to see and hear a certain someone for just one last time, only to come out of this dizzy dream realizing that if we were to see this person, even for one last moment, it would be our own minds playing that cruel April Fool's joke.

This time last year, I remember getting a page from my sister with the infamous "911" code, informing me that Selena Quintanilla Perez had just been shot. (Of course, I didn't believe her at first, thinking she was trying to pull an early April Fool's joke on me.)

Then, I remember driving home from UH around 5 p.m. -

avoiding the traffic-infested freeways - traveling through Houston's East End and North Side and spotting every car with messages to the Tejana queen:

"We will always miss you La Reyna ..."

"Viva Selena! Por Vida!"

"I will love you forever, Selena."

I turned on the radio and heard nothing but Selena songs on every Spanish radio station and then, at that moment, I realized something awful had happened.

I went home and tuned into the news as the report of the murder appeared on every station (even CNN). Reporters then went out to various Hispanic communities to interview those who knew her, grew up with her or just went to one of her concerts. Many cried on camera, choked in their speeches, and left before finishing.

"She was the one person every Hispanic knew," they would say.

And then it really struck me - all those promises of "next time she's here I'll go see her," all those visions of getting to see her in concert and all those dreams of getting to meet her in person, like every other Hispanic, would never come for me. I never got to see her.

It's been 366 days since superstar Selena was killed at a motel by her ex-fan club president and close friend. It has been a long 366 days that have only brought us a half-finished English CD from the queen of Tejano, an array of pop culture books about her, news about an upcoming movie, tributes, posters, sad songs and stories ... and sorrow. A year, and if you drive through Houston's Latino barrios today, you could probably still see cars with year-old painted Selena messages on them, as if she could see them. (OK, so some of us never wash our cars, y qué?)

In our world, she was everywhere. In the news, on the radio, at children's hospitals, at weddings, at the rodeo and in our homes. Now, she isn't.

Instead, when tuning into TV or reading the newspaper, we hear Pat Buchanan complaining about "Mexicans crossing the border," and read Mike Royko's column that claims the only good thing to come out of Mexico is tequila. Yeah, it's easy to say she is missed around these parts.

Contreras is a senior English and history major.