Good Life Project - Anything For Selena | Maria Garcia

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Have you ever been so deeply affected by another person that their story literally gives your life context and meaning and even a sense of belonging? Now, what it that other person was someone you never actually met? And what if they’d been gone from the planet for 25 years, but still it was like they were present in your life, guiding and inspiring you every day?That, it turns out, is the power of authenticity, agency, and legacy. And, in today’s conversation with award-winning journalist, writer, and producer, Maria Garcia, we dive deep into these topics in a very cool and unusual way. Through the lens of the life of iconic performer, Selena Quintanilla, and the impact she had not just on Maria’s life, but on tens of millions around the world, even decades after her tragic passing at a young age. And, not because Maria or, for that matter, any of those millions, knew Selena, personally, but because what she embodied profoundly affected and informed the way Maria, and those millions, saw themselves, their sense of wholeness, heritage, community, and the call to celebrate uniqueness, and embrace life through a lens of possibility and joy. In the end, it’s really a story about belonging, which we all need more of.Maria became the driving creative force and on-air host of the stunning podcast series, Anything for Selena, which was named Apple Podcast's Show of the Year of 2021, and produced with Futuro Studios and NPR member station WBUR. You can find Maria at: Instagram | WebsitesIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Samin Nosrat about food, belonging, culture and connection.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It had been my dream to do a podcast about Selena for years. I wanted there to be a record that really, really solidified her legacy and told us how she changed culture, how she changed music. And I wanted to use my craft as a storyteller to pay homage to this woman who left such a tremendous impact on my life. I wanted to write a love letter to her through serialized storytelling. So have you ever been so deeply affected by another person that their story literally gives your life context and meaning and even a sense of belonging. Now, what if that other person was someone you never actually met? And what if they'd been gone from the planet for more than 25 years, but still it was like they were present in your life,

guiding and inspiring you every day? Well, that it turns out is the power of authenticity and agency and legacy. And in today's conversation with award-winning journalist and writer and producer Maria Garcia, we dive deep into these topics in a very cool and unusual way through the lens of the life of the iconic performer Selena Quintanilla and the impact she had not just on Maria's life, but on tens of millions around the world, even decades after her tragic passing at a young age. And also not because Maria or for that matter, any of those millions knew Selena personally, but because what she embodied profoundly affected and informed the

way Maria and those millions saw themselves, their sense of wholeness, heritage, community, and the call to celebrate uniqueness and embrace life through a lens of possibility and joy. In the end, it's really a story about belonging, which we all need more of. So incredibly, in the 27 years since Selena's death, her legend has only grown. Her story has been told on large screens, small screens, countless interviews, and continues to make an imprint on media and culture and music that transcends generations and nationality. And still, Maria knew there was more to be told. She wanted to go deeper, to ask questions, explore issues, and talk to people that had remained in the shadows for

decades, then tell their fuller story, the real story, in a way that allowed all of us to step into it and learn from it, and in no small way, reconnect to ourselves and those around us. So Maria became the driving creative force and on-air host of the stunning podcast series, Anything for Selena, which was named Apple Podcast Show of the Year in 2021 and produced with Futuro Studios and NPR member station WBUR. And for the first time in her 15 plus years in journalism, she did something that broke one of the fundamental rules of reporting.

She became a part of the story. Because, as you learn, she realized she couldn't not. We talk about how this project became a calling and how and why she felt compelled to weave her own story into the bigger story of Selena's life and her powerful decision to center the universality of struggle and joy, expression, and the complexity of love, relationships, and power in the conversation. I was so deeply drawn in and moved by this body of work and was so excited to dive into Maria's life, the stories and experiences that led her into telling stories, shining lights,

and championing ideas and ideals that matter to her and her community. Maria opens up about all of the above, as well as the intimate process of the unique storytelling that took place in the creation of this podcast series, and takes me through the before and aftermath of creating and launching Anything for Selena, assessing the ways that it really transformed her and hopefully whoever is tuning in. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

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The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Where are you, by the way, now? Are you Texas, New York, somewhere else? I'm in El Paso. Yeah, I'm in Texas. I've been going back and forth between here and Boston for a couple of years, but I think

I'm finally settling down here, making this my home base. I have mountains here and I have the desert and I have this very real connection with the land here. It's not even the city. It's not necessarily even people. It's like the land calls to me here, you know, and to be able to walk out of my front door and see the mountains in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and see the mountains in El Paso. And it just feels like my body recognizes this place in a very visceral way. And that keeps me here. Yeah. That resonates powerfully with me as well. I'm in Boulder, Colorado now after spending a life in a different type of mountains, like tall buildings in New York City.

And there's something so powerful that draws me in to just, even if I'm not out hiking or walking around in the mountains, just knowing that I'm sort of being held close by them. Yes. There's something kind of powerful and magical about that. I don't know if everyone's affected that way, but I know I certainly am. It sounds like you are as well. I am. You know, I have this theory that people who are affected that way by mountains, you know, I have the same feeling as well.

Like somehow things are okay because I'm close to this mountain, you know, like somehow this mountain is holding me and protecting me in some way. And it's just this feeling that I have. And I think it has to have been a feeling that has to have been passed down through the generations by somebody else who maybe was literally protected by a mountain in a more evolutionary kind of way. And maybe it's just like an appreciation that is somehow epigenetically in me now. I'm not sure, but I know there's something deep there for sure. Yeah, no, that totally resonates. I often describe boulders sort of like it's nestled

right in the front range of the Rockies. And I often describe it as, you know, if you turned your palm upwards and then you took your fingers and you reached them up, it's like boulders the palm and the fingers that are reaching upward is sort of like the front range of the Rockies. And you're just being held in the middle of that. And it's that feeling that I get from being in this town. It sounds like you really resonate with that as well. It's interesting also, right?

Because your incredible podcast series, which we'll dive into anything for Selena. It starts out not with a story like about a person, but it starts out with a moment that really taps into the land. It does. Yeah. You know, when I was thinking, how do I start this journey, this journey of not just discovery about Selena, but also self-discovery because to learn about Selena in a way is to learn about myself because I have such a personal connection to her. Like I think millions of Latinas and young women in this country do. And that connection to her, the foundation for that really starts with the place that I was raised in, which is on the US-Mexico border. And like I said, I'm really drawn to this place because of the actual land. And I wanted to really convey that

to the listeners that this journey with Selena that we're about to go on, it comes from a very specific place. It comes from a very specific lens. I can't tell this story honestly without telling you the place that I'm coming from, without telling you the lens that I'm looking at it through. And that is completely shaped by growing up in this place, by growing up on the border. But beyond the man-made border and what El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are now, the land here is so special to me and the way I'm connected to the land is through my five senses. And one of the most powerful, one of those is my sense of smell. And this is what I mean when I say my body recognizes this place. I smell creosote bush, which is one of the oldest living organisms on

the planet. It's this beautiful plant. In my eyes, it's beautiful. This beautiful sort of brush that grows in the desert that's been around for tens of thousands of years. And when it rains, it releases these chemicals, and I say this in the podcast, it's other stuff found in nature, like citrus and rosemary. And it smells like nowhere else. And I wanted to start off with that, showing people like this journey begins in a place, in a place that really shaped me. Yeah. It brought you into your senses also, which I thought was really cool and appreciated because it grounds you in a different way.

I'm curious, growing up, you described how your family was on one side, but it was almost like you were living these two lives. In fact, you used the phrase, I guess, translates roughly into English, neither from here nor there. It sounds like just regularly, every weekend, every weekend, moving back and forth between Juarez and El Paso. I'm curious about that phrase, neither from here nor there. Take me deeper into what that means and what it means for you in particular? I've evolved a bit and I've come to realize that it's not that I'm not from one place or another, but that in fact, I belong a little bit in both. But growing up, it was really confusing for me. The way El Paso and Ciudad Juarez is set up is they're these twin cities, both of them nestled by

mountains in the same valley. And these two cities, their downtowns are connected. If you go into downtown El Paso, you can walk the border and be in downtown Ciudad Juarez and be in Mexico in a major Mexican city. And there's so many people, there's thousands of people who cross the border every single day. There are families that half of them are in El Paso, half of them are in Ciudad Juarez. My family was like that. I had cousins and aunts in Mexico. And of course my parents lived in the States. They were new immigrants here. And so I was constantly crossing the border, sometimes a couple times a week. And I was going to school in the States and learning about American history in the States

and pop music and sort of getting everything like a sort of standard American education in the States. But in Mexico, I was still very much holding on to my parents' culture. And I was listening to cumbias and I was just absorbing my culture there still. And I grew up in a very Latino community, but this was in the 90s when assimilation was very, very, very praised. And so even though it was a largely Latino community, the assimilated kids and the white kids were sort of at the top of the school hierarchy. And there was a sort of shame in being explicitly Mexican. And I remember internalizing this shame, you know, like one day in PE singing like one of the cumbias that I had been dancing on the weekend with my mom and my grandma in Ciudad Juarez and like kind of happily humming it during PE. And one of my classmates coming up to me and being like,

ew, are you singing Mexican music? And that was the vibe, you know? And so what happened is I began code switching at a very young age. I didn't have the vocabulary to know that that's what was happening. I didn't even quite have the understanding, but I recognize now that that's what was going on is that from very early on, five, six, seven, eight years old, I was learning to be Mary in the States and Maria Elena in Ciudad Juarez and in Mexico. And these two parts of myself never really came together. And I talk about in the podcast how the border wasn't just a physical barrier, but it was also something that divided me inside as well. Yeah. I mean, it's so powerful. On the one hand, you describe how

that affected you as a kid and you share that you have a bit of a different lens, like rather than not really feeling like you're from here or there, you've come to a place where it sounds like you feel like you have a sense of dual belonging almost. But it does sound like as a kid, like, and look, this is every kid, right? All you want to do is fit in. You want to feel like you're accepted by wherever you are. And for you, that had to have just been really interesting, sort of learning the skill of code switching. Even if you didn't have the language or even the awareness that you were doing, it just became like this default behavior. I often wonder for folks who develop that as a way of being early in life, how that

travels with you through life and how it sometimes benefits you, but also sometimes keeps parts of your identity from showing up that without us even realizing it, causing a certain amount of stifling or harm. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it stayed with me for many, many years. I code switched all of my life. I did it in jobs. I did it when I went to my fancy grad school. And it wasn't until I would say my late twenties, early thirties that I started to realize it was like a skill that I kind of had to unlearn. You know, I had to tell little Maria that was deep inside of me, like, hey, you're safe now. It's okay.

Like, it's okay to be yourself now. It's completely safe to be Mexican now in all settings that you want to be in. You don't have to camouflage yourself anymore to stay safe. And it's a skill that I had to unlearn so that I can show up as authentically myself in more spaces. Yeah. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. I'm curious also when you step out into your early professional life in journalism, effectively storytelling, and again, a lot around politics policy and around border town issues. And also I'm fascinated by the early

decisions about how we step into a career, especially one that is driven so much by something that seems deeply rooted in a sense of wanting to shine light, wanting to tell stories and to a certain extent, root injustice and the need to sort of like show what's really going on. Yeah, no, it definitely was. I wanted to tell the stories of my community. That's what drove me into journalism. It wasn't just telling stories, period. Even though that's my passion. That's like the one thing that I know I'm really good at,

that I know I love deep inside. It's like this love for my craft that really energizes me even still. And I remember when the light turned on, like my senior year in high school, when I was like, I could tell stories for a living. And I could tell stories about my community that blew my mind that I could build a career out of that. And look, growing up in a border city and just being a casual consumer, both Mexican news and American news, I knew that the border was deeply misrepresented and that it was portrayed as just this sort of dangerous, lawless place that had been extracted of culture, that it was sort of like narco land.

And I grew up here. I know that there's way more to this community than the like mainstream media and movies and shows portray. And I wanted to show like the full spectrum of humanity from this like vibrant place that I'm from. I wanted to show that it was more than just about immigration or narco-trafficking or danger, but that in fact, like this is a community that has so much to show about, you know, neighborly goodwill. This is such a safe place in part because it's a place of immigrants, you know, and I was really passionate about that. And that's why I stayed, you know, practicing journalism for over 10 years here, because I was so passionate about telling the stories of my community. And I felt this huge responsibility. And I thought, if I leave, like, what's going to happen? Like, I, of course, there's other journalists who are also, you know, first generation, my family to go to

college. And when it was time to pick a career, I thought of television journalism because it's the form that I had grown up with and sort of my working class home, you know, my parents saw the local news all the time and it's what I knew and it's what was familiar to me. And it's what I thought could really make a difference in telling the true story of the border. But what happened is I grew out of the medium and I realized that I wanted to go deeper and I wanted, you know, in television, there's this phrase of sort of simplifying the story, like break it down to its most elemental form and tell it in the most simplest form. And I realized that deep inside of me, I was craving to do the opposite. And I wanted to complicate the story.

And I wanted to look at the most complicated parts of a story and I wanted to unpack those. And I was tired of simplifying. I wanted to tell longer stories. I wanted to tell more complicated stories. I wanted to get into like the nitty gritty of stuff. And so I grew out of the television medium. And that's when I went to long form and arts and culture. Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting shift to me. I remember years ago, I've done media on and off over the years, like on the other side of the mic and having one TV segment and the typical three to five minute interview. And I could see the person interviewing me. This was in before times when we were in person in a studio in New York. And I could see her watching the teleprompter just waiting for me to stop talking so she could ask the next question. And when it aired, our community, we got all these messages from people being angry actually at the interviewer. They were going past you. They were just like, and I was like, no, no, no. It's completely fine. The nature of the medium is it's short form, it's soundbite. It's just, that's what the container allows for.

But so much of our community is used to in-depth conversations where we can go wherever it feels right to go and really explore the conversation and the issues. It is, I think often we don't really think about the limitations of the channel itself and how that matches or doesn't match with the way that we're personally wired to do the work that we're here to do. So it's so interesting to me that you had that realization and said that I literally need to shift to a different way. I love the core of what I'm doing, but I can't do it in the channel or the medium in the

way that I want to really make it happen. Yeah. I felt like my soul was hungry for more. And I knew that I wanted to keep telling stories, but I knew I wanted more space to tell stories. And I knew that I wanted to do the opposite of simplifying them. So that leads you as you share, you end up going back to journalism school. And then from there, unless I'm missing a step, you end up in Boston. So you, you make this move to public radio and then one of the most iconic public radio stations that's been around for a long time where, you know, and public radio has this reputation of like, let's, let's latch onto stories and actually go deeper. Let's go

where we need to go. Not too long into that, you then decide there's one particular story that has been told a million times, but not in a way that I feel like it needs to be told or could be told. Take me there. It had been my dream to do a podcast about Selena for years. You know, I grew up consuming every Selena story out there. So, you know, every year on the anniversary of her death and on the anniversary of the day she was born, there's a flurry of articles that touch on her legacy. But that's kind of what they do is they touch on it. And as a Selena fan all of my life, I wanted there to be a record that really, really solidified her legacy and told us how she changed culture, how she changed

music, what her role was in the world. And I was just really hungry for that to exist. And I thought, well, maybe I could do it. And I pitched the story for a couple of years before the folks at BUR were finally like, okay, I think you're ready for this. But I wanted something, I wanted to use my craft as a storyteller to pay homage to this woman who left such a tremendous impact on my life. I wanted to write a love letter to her through serialized storytelling. For those who don't know who we're talking about, when I think much of the world, when you literally just use that first name, Selena knows. But for those who don't, tell me a little bit more about who this person was.

Oh, of course. Yeah. So Selena Quintanilla was a Tejano singer from Corpus Christi, Texas. Tejano is like roots music, Mexican-American roots music from Texas. And Selena grew up performing from when she was eight years old. Her family owned a restaurant in Corpus Christi, Texas, where her father would make her sing there. Her family soon went bankrupt and lost the restaurant. Then they went into music full time. And from the young age of like eight or nine years old, Selena, as a singer, became the breadwinner for her family. You know, her artistry was the family business. She was that talented as a little girl.

And she was performing full time from the time she was like 12 years old, traveling all around Texas. She started when she was eight, she started getting a little, you know, like regionally known when she was 12 or 13. And by the time, you know, she was 15, 16, 17. She was like a star in the Southwest of the United States. She was the queen of Tejano music, of this roots genre in Texas and California and Northern Mexico and Arizona. So she was huge in sort of the Western and Southern part of the United States. And she was on the cusp in the mid-90s when she was in her early 20s, she was on the cusp of mainstream success.

She was American, born in, like I said, Corpus Christi. So her first language was English, but she had sang in Spanish all of her career. But in her early 20s, she was finally ready to do an English album. And so she was on the cusp of mainstream success. She won a Grammy for Best Mexican American Artist. She was traveling internationally, filling stadiums in Latin America and in major cities in the US, including New York. She even performed in Boston. She was just right on the cusp of major, major stardom. She was already a big star in my world, but she was about to become a big star in everyone's world. And then in 1995, the president of her fan club was caught stealing money from Selena. Selena's manager father confronted the

woman. And a few weeks later, the woman shot and killed Selena. And it was huge, huge news. It was kind of like the Kennedy assassination for Latinos. It was a massive news event. It was the very first time in my life that I saw the same news headline in an English national network and a Mexican national network. I'd never seen anything like that in my whole life. And ever since her death, she's become this sort of mythological symbol for Latino identity. Her biopic came out in 1997, starring Jennifer Lopez, which kickstarted J-Lo's career. And Selena, you know, it's been a quarter of a century plus later. Her legacy is still as alive today as it is, as it was then, you know, Netflix did a series on her life. And yeah, she wasn't just a pop star. She was somebody who, I think the first form of authentic representation for a lot of Latino women in the 90s.

So it's about 20, 26 years now, 27. And given in that intervening window, like you shared, this was not somebody who was this incredible star. And then when she died was like a couple of years later, people just kind of moved on. If anything, her legend has grown and grown and grown for all the reasons that you shared. And there's been a lot of attention. A lot of people have tried to tell this story. And a lot of people have told pieces of the story. And A lot of people have told it the way that they wanted it told. So I'm always curious when you step into this and you're sort of rising in your career at this point, you're established, you've got a lot of chops and you've got a history and a body of work behind you and you latch onto this story and you say like, it's been 25 years. So many people have told pieces of this story and there are millions

of people who are holding onto their own way of telling the story and they keep it alive. And you think to yourself, how do I not only tell a story in a way that's different and fuller, but also honor the way that millions of people want to remember the story as they, because in their mind, they have the narrative. It had to have been such an interesting moment for you to figure out like, how do I do this in a way which is truly different? And at the same time honors not only her legacy, her family, but also the millions of people who still hold her almost like as a sacred being.

And you're stepping into this saying, I've got something that I can add to the conversation. I think that's when this idea of the role of a journalist and how much a journalist inserts themselves in a story in an authentic way, in a way that's necessary to the story. I think that's where this conversation really comes in, because I am one of those millions of people who see her as a sacred symbol. I am genuinely a fan. I love her in a very real, visceral way. It was hard for me to talk about Yolanda Saldivar, her killer, because anytime she comes up, I get this sort of anger deep inside of me. And I just want to take off my hoops. It's real. Me as a person, I am defined by so many things. And one of them is my love for Selena. And so I knew that I couldn't separate Maria, lover of of Mexican Maria from American Maria. You know, like Maria as a journalist is completely informed by Maria as Selena fan.

And I had to be honest with my audience from the beginning and let them know, like the person who is telling you this story, this is not a detached narrator. This is somebody who's coming from a very personal place. And that's why I started the podcast with the Crioso Bush, you know, because I wanted to start with something like viscerally personal. And so I knew that was the first step in getting it right, is just being honest with the audience and being honest with myself. That's why in episode two, when I talk about Selena's dad and my own dad, I came to realize when I was writing the episode, I couldn't separate myself as a person from my role as a journalist here. And I had to sort of clean with the listeners. And I think that place of honesty and vulnerability and saying like, you know, in order for me to tell the story honestly, I got to show you these

sort of parts of myself that are scary for me to show you, but I got to show them to you because you got to know where I'm coming from. In order for you to understand how much I love Selena and why I love Selena, then you kind of got to understand me a little bit. And I think a lot of people, just based on what I've heard and the kind of feedback I received, I think a lot of people saw their own story in mine. I think the people who see her as a sacred symbol and who love her were able to identify with my own story. And I think that was sort of my guiding principle is transparency, radical transparency from me to the audience. It was powerful because it wasn't just transparency and saying like, well, I want you to know where

I'm coming from so you can understand why I'm framing these things and why I'm asking these questions. But it was also you effectively saying, I'm a character in this story. And whether that was the original intention or not, that's what the fuller narrative of this entire series becomes. It's not just the story of this one incredible woman and her immediate family and fans. It's also, it's your personal story. You just described that second episode where you're talking about the role of her dad, who's this character who's been painted

in a lot of different ways in a very public way and describing it like your ability to actually have a sit down with him when he basically said no, everybody for years and years and years and how that led to a conversation that really to a conversation that really, to a certain extent, won him over, but also how it brings up your relationship with your own father.

And then you walk through how you felt and how it was really moving you emotionally. And part of the color and the texture of the conversation really walks people through your deeply emotional experience of your relationship and sometimes struggles with your dad before he passes. So you become a character in the story. And I'm so curious about this because coming from that background as a journalist, where it's sort of like drummed into in journalism, like you are not the story. Like your job is to be as unbiased, down the middle as you possibly can be. And then you're working in a very well-established public radio station that boasts

its journalism. And you're making this story, these decisions constantly say, first, I'm going to share that this is my lens and it's informed by all this. But also in doing so, I'm becoming a part of this story. So you're telling your personal story too. I'm so curious, sort of like how you're experiencing your insertion into this and trying to navigate, like, where is the line where like, I'm doing justice to myself. I'm doing justice to the story. And I'm also like, I'm honoring almost like all parties at once. It had to have been such a really delicate and sometimes challenging like experience

to try and figure out because I imagine that line was moving all over the place all the time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a bigger conversation that's being had in journalism about how much of themselves does the journalist reveal in a story? How much of themselves do they bring? How much do they own their lens? And it's this debate over objectivity versus transparency. When we started conceptualizing the series, I knew that ethically, just ethically as a journalist, I had to disclose where I was coming from. That I loved Selena, that this was not an unbiased account of her legacy. My bias is with Selena. And so I knew ethically I had to disclose that and that that had to be part of the narrative. I didn't expect to be a character in the story until we started getting into the

editorial conversations. And I started sharing with my editors sort of like my feelings around episodes and why they meant so much to me. And I had editors who told me like, you know, I think, I think you have to share this. You know, I think this is part of the, the story. And by the time I did Selena, my feeling around how much a journalist inserts themselves or not had really evolved from coming from commercial television where it's like it falls prey to the both sides-isms, especially because it's so, like you said, constrained by the form and the time limits. So I think journalists are really like, they're taught to give equal airtime to differing positions and to sort of stay in the middle. And by the time I did Selena,

my feelings around that had really evolved. I had taken some time to think about journalism without practicing it. I had taken a year when I did my master's to just think deeply and contemplate the role of a journalist instead of constantly being on deadline and being like an everyday practitioner of it. So I had some time to sort of think through these big ideas and I had to come to the conclusion that much of what we think of as unbiased journalism. In fact, objectivity is often disguised as a white male perspective or a perspective that often comes from the position of being white and male in this country. And I had come to realize that I craved more radical transparency in journalism and not the sort of faux notion of objectivity. Now, I do want to say in this conversation that it's very important to point out that I'm a big believer in solid reporting. There is something about the objectivity of your process.

Your process has to be rigorous and sound, and you have to be able to show that your process is that. the time I did Selena, I had editors who really held my story with a lot of compassion and love and trust. And when I put myself too much in the story to the point where it wasn't relevant, what edited me down and say, we don't really need that. Or when I wasn't being fully present and they would say, you know what? We miss you here. We think that your perspective really enhances the storytelling here or really contextualizes the story, really adds to the narrative. And so having editors with that sharpness who are able to bring you back or edit you out when necessary, always in service of the story, really made a huge difference. You know, editors who are able to hold your story with gentleness and love, but still be incisive about when you're necessary in the story and when you're not. To have that team, to have people with that perspective and that history and that experience,

to be able to work together and reflect back to you, I have to imagine that's so important in the process because at some point, the more we get into something like this, I think the harder it is to be objective. It's almost like a dear friend of mine always says, you know, the more we get into something like this, I think the harder it is to be objective. It's almost like, you know, a dear friend of mine always says you can't read the label from inside the jar. And it's like when you, the deeper you get into a story, especially one that you are just deeply invested in from a heart and mind and soul level, you know, I think it's so important to have those folks around you to help reflect back and ask the hard questions. And then it's also examining what is their lens, like what's their standard? And do I trust that that standard represents the way that I want to bring myself forward and the way that I want this story to be brought forward? So there's a lot of

layers there and there's a lot of trust. There's to imagine there are moments where you're just like, there are certain, I need to trust and rely on and open to the point of view of other people. And I'm curious whether there were moments where you had folks saying, this is what it really needs to be, but there was something in your gut that was saying, no? That's a good question. So first of all, just to give you some context, I'm sure you know this, with long form editing of podcasts, group edits are pretty common. So you'll have a group of people who come together and you'll have essentially a table read of the script where you play the sound and you read the narrations. And it's an incredibly vulnerable position to be in when you have a

group of people workshopping your work in real time and you're there reading it. I remember there were moments where I believe in collaborative editing in journalism. I think that it's the collective brain trust that often makes the project sharper. I love people. I love the synergy that happens in a group edit. I love hearing perspectives that I didn't consider. I love that. Because part of owning your lens is also owning what you don't know and the sides of the story that you can't see from the position in the world that you occupy. And hearing that from other people, I love that. But there were moments, for example, that were really important to me where I pushed back. One of them was at the beginning, there were some folks who thought we spent too much time on the creosote. And they were

like, you know, this is a really nice intro, but I think people are going to start wondering like, where's this podcast going? Can we shorten this down? It was so important to me to stay with the land and connect with that from the beginning. And that was a moment where there were few of these moments, but that was a moment where as a creator, I put my foot down and I said, no, we're staying with the Creosote. We're going to trust that our audience is on this ride with us. We're going to trust that they're smart enough to know that this is a poetic beginning to a story and that they're going to ride this ride with us. And yeah, there were editorial decisions like that all the time where ultimately, you want to be humble enough to listen to the opinions of others and change your mind when

necessary, but ultimately you also got to have to, you have to follow your gut, you know, and there were moments where I definitely did follow my gut and not take some advice from my editors. It's a balancing act. But what an amazing experience to be able to do that. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So Selena's story, and again, your story is woven into this, but it's also, there are these much larger narratives that you're exploring along the way, almost like using her story and your story as these launching points, not the least of which is how her story and then the various representations of her in media after her death even really teed up the question of what is beauty in Western culture and who gets to decide and who may be harmed or erased or not recognized along the way.

So these are like really big and important conversations that you tee up in a very, like you center these conversations. It's not like, oh, let's just mention this on the side. But you're like, no, let's actually dedicate a substantial amount of conversation to these because they matter. And this is sort of like, it was interesting to see, it was almost like you were giving people a different entry point into an important issue and teeing it up in a way which was potentially inviting more people into it and inviting them into looking at it differently. Yeah. I mean, I think the episode you're alluding

to is episode four, which is called Big Butt Politics. It's an episode about the impact that the way that Selena owned her voluptuous body and celebrated it, the way that impacted culture. And when we were imagining the series, I knew right away. This was one of the episodes that I immediately knew. I said, we have to do an episode about the way her body type was treated in society and the way that she celebrated her body and what that did for the culture. Because I saw it in my lifetime. I saw the change. When I was growing up, crossing the border all the time, having parties with my big Mexican family in Mexico and hanging out with my American friends in the States during the week, there was this big difference in the way voluptuous bodies were treated in different contexts. In Mexico and with my family, my Mexican family, curves and big

butts were celebrated and coveted and everybody wanted one. Like with my white friends, big butts were sort of derided and like their moms would exercise to get rid of their butts. And like it was like not a desirable body part to have. And I remember noticing this when I was young and how odd it was that like this feature can elicit these very oppositional reactions in different cultures. And then Selena comes along. She wore these tight, tight cat suits, you know, and she celebrated her curves and she owned them and she didn't try to hide them. On the contrary, she sort of highlighted them. I'm not saying that Selena was sort of this bastion of body positivity because she was like a thin woman with big curves. But what I am saying is that I do think that it mattered that here was this brown woman who celebrated her curves. And it mattered a lot for

Mexican American and Latina girls like me who were getting mixed messages about whether these features that we had were desirable or not. And here was this American pop star who unequivocally said, they're beautiful and they're worth celebrating. And then of course, J-Lo comes along in 1997 and plays Selena and takes that conversation to a whole new level. You remember this, I'm sure, in like 97, 98, mainstream media, every magazine, every television show, every late night show was talking about JLo's body and she was talking a lot about her butt. And then suddenly I saw this change in the mainstream culture where big butts were formerly looked down upon, seen as not desirable. And I saw this shift in the wider culture and suddenly this feature was praised and

was desirable in the mainstream. And then, of course, there's been this huge evolution since then, you know, from J-Lo to now, you know, of course, Kim Kardashian and beyond. But really, that was sort of the spark that led to this wider change in the mainstream culture. And what I realized that investigating this episode is it comes down to, you know, J.Lo wasn't the first person, of course, to have this body type,

not even the first famous person to show off her curves. Black women had been doing it for a very long time, but they didn't receive the attention and the praise that J-Lo did. And I wanted to investigate why. And I realized that the story wasn't just about like, oh, mainstream beauty ideals changed because Selena had a big butt and JLo played her. And then JLo ushered in this revolution of big butts. And that's the story. No, there's more to it because I say this in the podcast, it doesn't start there. deep, deep history of anti-Blackness and the way that Latino identity, the relationship it has with Blackness. And so, yeah, that's what we dug deep in the episode. Yeah. I mean, it was interesting to see you basically dedicate an entire episode to this conversation because I was imagining a fairly limited run of episodes. And when you're trying to figure out, okay, so what are the pieces of

the story you want to tell? And then what are the larger social issues that we really need to dive into and saying, this is worthy. This is something which is so pervasive in the culture. And then you saying as a journalist, what if we dive into this on a deep level and really try and understand what's happening here? Like what changed and why? And who are we leaving behind or who are we erasing? Or like, is there harm being caused by this beyond just, oh, there's like this evolution of the way that we see beauty based on celebrity culture, which is certainly a part of that

story. So I was curious about what was happening behind that, that led to say, okay, so let's dive into this conversation. You move through the story and you cover so many different topics in such a beautiful, powerful, story-driven way that is expansive, that literally just invites millions of people in. In fact, millions of people do get invited in and share in this story. And I thought there was a really interesting moment also at the very end, you added in a couple of bonus episodes. One of them being a couple months later, it sounds like circling back and saying, you know, Selene was actually married and the story of like what

led to that and the like fierce resistance from her dad, you know, like you tell really powerfully in the podcast, but her husband, Chris, you know, like it was 26 years and nobody had really talked to him during this whole window of time. And you, you got curious about him and you went and found him and were able to arrange a sit down with him. And this was in the middle of the pandemic at this point. So there's an outdoor sit down that happens with you and him and Joshua Tree, where you really sort of dive into his life and what have things been like for him? And also what was his lens on what life was like with Selena along the way? And he becomes really vulnerable and open in a way

that sounds like you weren't expecting. And that also he's reflecting on struggles that he had in his relationship post-Selena and how it ended that also happened to resonate with you and the ending of your own relationship. And again, you brought everything to the microphone in a really powerful way. And I was curious why, what was underneath you feeling like we need to have this end cap to the story that we're telling? Yeah. I haven't been able to go back and listen to that bonus episode because it captures such a delicate time in my life. It was a moment where I was trying to rebuild my life after my relationship of seven years had come to an end. And I was trying to figure out how to establish a healthy

co-parenting relationship with the father of my son after I think he and I had inflicted some trauma on each other. And it was just a really trying time. And here was the universe giving me this opportunity to speak to Chris Bettis about his own marriage to Selena and relationships and love and heartbreak and recovering from those and rising up after heartbreak. And, you know, honestly, I was in kind of a haze when I wrote that, you know, I was, especially as a mom, you know, and I think that comes out in the episode a bit, the idea of handing off my son on a holiday or, you know, every other weekend was like brand new to me. You know, it was like brand new to me. Like, oh my God, I'm not going to be with this little human all the time. Like I'm going to have to share him, you know? And it was really, really just such an adjustment and it was really hard. And now, I guess, what's it been two years since? I feel so settled and so at ease in my motherhood and in the direction of my life. And I have done some of that rebuilding, but at that moment, I felt so raw. Just like when I met her father, I couldn't help but think of mine. When I was talking to her husband about relationships, you know, it was really hard to sort of separate what was going a relationship with myself. And I just felt like

that last part of it, how many of us walk through life feeling like we're perpetually in the process of reconciling a relationship with ourselves. And like what a universal experience that is, regardless of whatever the trauma or just process of inquiry and awakening therapy, whatever it may be that leads to that. And I thought it was really powerful and vulnerable that you kind of like said, we're putting this to air. Because what I felt like you were also doing was inviting people in and saying, you're not alone. We all go through moments and I'm going through one right now. And it's actually okay to not just keep it to yourself,

to like be with other beings and people as you walk that path. I thought it was really, it was moving and powerful. And I thought a really beautiful end cap to the way that you shared the entire story. And that feels like a good place also for us to come full circle in our conversation, which I've enjoyed so much.

So in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, embrace imperfection. Embrace imperfection. Don't stop yourself from doing something because it's not going to be perfect. Embrace the wrinkles and do it anyway. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you will also love the conversation we had with Samin Nosrat about food and belonging, culture, and connection. You'll find a link to Samin's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project

in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you wanna help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.

Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.