On Friday, June 18th, Mexican-American author Brando Skyhorse dropped by San Francisco’s Books Inc. on Van Ness Street to promote his first novel “The Madonnas of Echo Park”—a sweeping story about the lives of the people in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles—similar to the Mission—from which the title gets its name.

Skyhorse, in his thirties, sat at desk in front of an intimate but enthusiastic crowd, sporting a black leather jacket and an easy-going attitude. He talked about himself and his inspiration for his novel which was published by Simon & Schuster this June.

Born and raised in Echo Park, Skyhorse’s background is as colorful and interesting as the universe of Los Angeles in his novel.

Born to Mexican parents, he talked about growing up unaware that he was Mexican. His last name actually comes from his stepfather who was Native-American.

“When I was three my Mexican father abandoned me (…) and from the time I was three, until I was about 12 or 13, I believed I was Native-American because that’s what I had been told,” Skyhorse said.

His mother, he said, had re-invented herself as Native-American.

“She was born Maria Theresa Bernaga and she became Running Dear Skyhorse. Now if you have had your choice between being Maria Theresa or Running Dear Skyhorse. Who would you rather be? I know who I would rather be. It became this thing that was not openly discussed because it was just something that she was just happier with, I think, just having a better story to tell,” said Skyhorse, referring to his upbringing. “My mom loved telling stories and this was the greatest story of all. The fact that she was the wife of this big Native American radical and she was a Native-American herself and has a son named Brando Skyhorse. I mean that’s a phenomenal story!”

As Skyhorse grew older and learned that he was indeed Mexican, his mother encouraged him to lie—which was just what he did. In the few instances when he told the truth about his true ethnicity, he often felt punished as a result.

“My high school girlfriend who was Vietnamese (…) when I told her, she broke up with me,” he said.

Skyhorse read his “Author’s Note” chapter from the book. Before reading, he mentioned the unwritten literary rule that author’s notes be completely factual and his decision to break that rule.

In it, he describes his disastrous experience at a sixth-grade dance with Aurora Esperanza—his pretty 12-year-old classmate—with whom he was forced to dance with to a Madonna song.

His experience, full of junior-high awkwardness, rang all too familiar with his audience. The pre-teen couple never danced.

Instead, he turned what could have been just an embarrassing moment into one of cruelty and self-hatred. Skyhorse, at the age of 12 and still unaware of this true ethnicity, refuses to dance with Aurora because she “is a Mexican”. He yells this out and embarrasses her in front of the entire class.

It would be 25 years before Skyhorse saw her again, back in their Echo Park neighborhood. They joked about the incident. She told him that she understands his mother’s secrecy, adding, “why would anyone want to be a Mexican in this country in a time like this?”

It’s a telling and powerful question the reader is left to ponder. It’s where Skyhorse stopped his reading and where the stories of Aurora Esperanza and the eight other voices of his novel begin. Here, in Skyhorse’s Echo Park, all these lives connect and interact with Aurora in various ways—some subtle and others direct.

These nine voices—both male and female—come from people who are often invisible. They include a cleaning lady, a day laborer, an angry self-hating bus driver, a cool kid obsessed with 80s British pop music, an old cholo veterano—who all realize, with the onset of gentrification, that the streets never belonged to them.

There is even feisty old abuela who has a testy exchange with the Virgin Mary herself at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard.

What all their characters have in common, however, is that they are all put into situations, by virtue of their identities and experiences as Mexican-Americans, where they are tested and must make difficult, life-altering decisions.

Skyhorse said his inspiration derived from two places. The first was from people he actually knew from living in Echo Park. Although he borrowed only bits and pieces and there wasn’t and direct inspiration for any specific character.

“The other half is mostly from my own invention,” he said.

Besides his mother’s fondness for story telling, Skyhorse also talked about the influence from his grandmother. She spoke fluent Spanish and had an interest in Latino culture.

“She was kind of like the unofficial historian and mayor of Echo Park. She knew everybody. She knew all the history…and I got a lot of that information and a lot of that flavor from her,” he said.

And it is the flavor of Skyhorse’s writing that brings alive the sights and sounds of Los Angeles and the people who live there. But “The Madonnas of Echo Park” is ultimately about identity and finding acceptance. It asks the question: what does it mean to be a Mexican-American? It’s a question that’s become even more relevant in today’s political climate.