On Friday, June 18th, Mexican-American author Brando Skyhorse dropped by San Francisco\u2019s Books Inc. on Van Ness Street to promote his first novel \u201cThe Madonnas of Echo Park\u201d\u2014a sweeping story about the lives of the people in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles\u2014similar to the Mission\u2014from which the title gets its name.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Echo Park, Skyhorse\u2019s background is as colorful and interesting as the universe of Los Angeles in his novel.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was three my Mexican father abandoned me (\u2026) and from the time I was three, until I was about 12 or 13, I believed I was Native-American because that\u2019s what I had been told,\u201d Skyhorse said.<\/p>\n
His mother, he said, had re-invented herself as Native-American.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe 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,\u201d said Skyhorse, referring to his upbringing. \u201cMy 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\u2019s a phenomenal story!\u201d<\/p>\n
As Skyhorse grew older and learned that he was indeed Mexican, his mother encouraged him to lie\u2014which 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy high school girlfriend who was Vietnamese (…) when I told her, she broke up with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Skyhorse read his \u201cAuthor\u2019s Note\u201d chapter from the book. Before reading, he mentioned the unwritten literary rule that author\u2019s notes be completely factual and his decision to break that rule.<\/p>\n
In it, he describes his disastrous experience at a sixth-grade dance with Aurora Esperanza\u2014his pretty 12-year-old classmate\u2014with whom he was forced to dance with to a Madonna song.<\/p>\n
His experience, full of junior-high awkwardness, rang all too familiar with his audience. The pre-teen couple never danced.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cis a Mexican\u201d. He yells this out and embarrasses her in front of the entire class.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s secrecy, adding, \u201cwhy would anyone want to be a Mexican in this country in a time like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a telling and powerful question the reader is left to ponder. It\u2019s where Skyhorse stopped his reading and where the stories of Aurora Esperanza and the eight other voices of his novel begin. Here, in Skyhorse\u2019s Echo Park, all these lives connect and interact with Aurora in various ways\u2014some subtle and others direct.<\/p>\n
These nine voices\u2014both male and female\u2014come 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<\/em>\u2014who all realize, with the onset of gentrification, that the streets never belonged to them.<\/p>\n There is even feisty old abuela<\/em> who has a testy exchange with the Virgin Mary herself at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t and direct inspiration for any specific character.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other half is mostly from my own invention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Besides his mother\u2019s fondness for story telling, Skyhorse also talked about the influence from his grandmother. She spoke fluent Spanish and had an interest in Latino culture.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was kind of like the unofficial historian and mayor of Echo Park. She knew everybody. She knew all the history\u2026and I got a lot of that information and a lot of that flavor from her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And it is the flavor of Skyhorse\u2019s writing that brings alive the sights and sounds of Los Angeles and the people who live there. But \u201cThe Madonnas of Echo Park\u201d is ultimately about identity and finding acceptance. It asks the question: what does it mean to be a Mexican-American? It\u2019s a question that\u2019s become even more relevant in today\u2019s political climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Friday, June 18th, Mexican-American author Brando Skyhorse dropped by San Francisco\u2019s Books Inc. on Van Ness Street to promote his first novel \u201cThe Madonnas of Echo Park\u201d\u2014a sweeping story about the lives of the people in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles\u2014similar to the Mission\u2014from which the title gets its name. Skyhorse, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[459,455,457,456,458],"coauthors":[18468],"class_list":["post-3707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-books-inc","tag-brando-skyhorse","tag-echo-park","tag-novel","tag-the-madonnas-of-echo-park","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n