Starting in spring 2020, San Diego State University will offer a class on the musical Tejano legend Selena Quintanilla.

The course, in the School of Journalism and Media Studies, will explore Latino representation in the media over the years, and how Selena’s rise to fame changed the media landscape.

Assistant professor Nathian Rodriguez will be teaching the class next spring. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and was surrounded by Selena’s music during his childhood. After working in the radio broadcast and music industry, he noticed there weren’t a lot of minorities coming on the air.

Through his class, he hopes to examine the representation, misrepresentation, and absence of Latinos in the media, using Selena as a point of reference. Students will learn about her life and music while analyzing her influence.


Rodriguez says Selena is the perfect icon to peg the class on due to the widespread cultural impact she had.

“She’s still one of those enduring cultural figures that people can really understand and identify with,” he said.

One of the ways he personally identifies with the star is through finding the balance with his Mexican and American identity. Like Rodriguez, Selena’s first language was not Spanish, although she remains a Mexican cultural icon. He wants the course to teach students to understand how her cross-cultural identity allowed her to influence both the English and Spanish media landscape.

He also hopes the class will help students develop their critical analysis skills. It will take place in one of SDSU’s Learning Research Studios, which allows for direct student engagement and collaborative work.


Students will look at representations of Selena in mainstream media, such as the movie “Selena,” the Netflix original “Selena: The Series,” which is set to stream next year, and the use of her image as advertising from brands like MAC Cosmetics and Forever 21.

Rodriguez says studying cultural iconography will allow students to understand that media has the ability to influence people’s opinions about Latino culture, and give them the ability to dissect and analyze Latino representation in media.

Although the class is focused around Selena, he wants to assure people that students will come to grasp the bigger picture.

“This isn’t a class about a celebrity,” he said. “She’s the pop culture hook we’re using to explore Latinx representation in the media.”

