Rebecca Lee Meza remembers March 31, 1995, very clearly, although she was only 9 years old.
“It was the worst day of my life,” Meza said Wednesday in her new shop, Rebecca Lee’s Flowers and Bridal Boutique.
It was raining that fateful day in 1995 and her father came to pick her up from school.
He said he had some bad news: Tejano superstar Selena was dead. Like many Hispanic girls, Meza idolized Selena.
“I just figured it was an early April Fool’s Day joke — the worst kind,” Meza said.
But her father turned on the radio. The airwaves were full of tributes to the singer and every station seemed to be playing her music.
“I just lost it,” she said. “She was the first person I ever knew about that had died.”
A year later, Meza would win the role of the young Selena in a motion picture about the slain singer.
Texas State Technical College will mark the special 10th anniversary re-release of “Selena” on DVD with a special outdoor screening of the movie Saturday at Lozano Plaza, the corner of Jackson Street and A Street in downtown Harlingen. Entertainment begins at 6:30 p.m. Meza will make an appearance at the event.
Along with the film, there will be an exhibit of Selena photos taken by photographer Ric Vasquez.
The movie will be shown at 8 p.m. The public is welcome to bring lawn chairs and blankets to watch the events. Admission is free and concessions will be sold at the site.
Sponsors include Harlingen Downtown, Harlingen Public Library, Harlingen Parks & Recreation Department, and Texas State Technical College Harlingen.
One of the events set for Saturday is a Selena look-a-like contest. Meza is quite familiar with those.
“I wanted to be just like her,” Meza remembers.
“I went to Cavalry Christian School with all of these blond, beautiful little girls,” Meza said. “Before Selena came along, that’s what I thought I had to be to be beautiful: blond-haired and blue-eyed.”
“And that’s something I could never be.”
Meza said Selena looked beautiful, dressed cool, and sang incredibly.
“This was somebody I could look up to, somebody who looked like me,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of role models back then for little girls like me.”
Meza and her parents began traveling to Selena look-alike contests, first around the Valley and then around the state. The family wasn’t rich and started holding fundraisers to pay for gas and hotels.
Then came news that a Selena movie was being cast in San Antonio. Meza and her parents waited in line for six hours at the audition.
“I never expected to win,” Meza said. They were showing lots of Selena videos and home movies at the audition and that was Meza’s main focus.
But she passed that audition and the field was narrowed from 20,000 little girls to 200.
“When I finally made top 7, I began to take it seriously,” Meza said.
Even though her singing was dubbed in the film, Meza recorded her own album after “Selena” was released. Although it received some good reviews, there was not a follow-up album.
After high school, Meza made a brief stab at a music career in Austin, but that didn’t work out.
“I sing Tejano, that’s what I’m good at,” she said. “But in a lot of ways, Tejano died with Selena. Everything is Norteņo now.”
While Meza has had little to do with show business over the past decade, the walls of her boutique are covered with photos of Selena along with others taken at the movie’s premiere.
Meza has a lot on her plate now. She opened the business in March and her second son, Dax, was born in August and is growing like a weed. At birth, he weighed about 6 pounds, and after only a month is now up to 11 pounds. He has a 2-year-old brother named Evan at home.
Despite her busy life as a mother and a business owner, music is calling once again.
Rebecca Lee’s Flowers and Bridal Boutique is located next to 2Mix Studios on Seventh Street. The walls aren’t that thick and she can hear the music being recorded.
Her husband, David Burden works in his family business but used to play guitar in a rock band. He and 2Mix owner John Lutes are friends and Meza said they often work on musical projects together.
“I can hear them over there through the walls,” she said. “They’re always trying to get me into the studio.”
Meza has resisted so far but she is weakening. There are also plans for her to record a duet with a nationally known Tejano singer.
“If anything, I’d like to sing again,” she said. “Acting was fun but it’s not my calling.
Singing is where my heart is.”
