The Madonnas of Echo Park

Hector begins Chapter 1 with the reflection, “the more you lose, the more American you can become” (1). With this reflection, he suggests that the process of becoming American—transitioning from a “Mexican immigrant” to an “American” identity—is a process of surrendering the land, culture, and elements of life he used to align with his Mexican self.

Over the course of The Madonnas of Echo Park, the different Mexican-American narratives establish a culture of adaptive behaviors based around loss. These behaviors most often revolve around lying: stretching the truth to obtain work, concealing the truth to retain work, and covering up the self-destructive behaviors (such as Hector’s affair with Cristina) used as temporary distractions from the limited options for Mexican immigrants. Though these narrators might prefer to live more honest lives, lying is often their sole line of defense against prejudice, discrimination, and even deportation. As Diego remarks to Hector when they discuss lying about their ages to get day-labor jobs, “When is the last time you got something for telling the truth?” (6)

In The Madonnas of Echo Park, numerous characters are forced to examine their culpability in situations, taking responsibility for their lies. When asked to dispose of the sledgehammer used to kill his friend, Diego, Hector confesses to the police, knowing he will be deported. As he explains, “Everything I have earned in this life by lying, I have lost. By lying” (23). After a violent incident on his bus that results in the deaths of two men, Efren Mendoza must take responsibility for his decisions—including his own racial biases—and face the gray areas of his testimony. Haunted by the knowledge that his father shot 3-year-old Alma Guerrero, Manny Jr. eventually faces the ways he has passed down this toxic legacy to his own son, Juan:

In my mind, I was apologizing […] for being such a worthless father, for not loving Ofelia with the proper amount of respect, the drug scores, the anonymous dick-sucking tricks in men’s rooms for money, the untold number of late nights I stumbled home drunk and punched Juan in bed at three in the morning to teach him to always be prepared to be attacked (103).

The Mexican-American women in The Madonnas of Echo Park must also account for their lies. When Beatriz Esperanza encounters Our Lady of Guadalupe, she must face the fact that her cold, independent personality—which helped her escape the abuse of her Uncle Archie—has led to the cruel isolation of her family. In order to understand the lie she has used to justify her cruelty—the rationalization that her mother and sisters failed to protect her, and thus deserved to be shut out—Our Lady of Guadalupe forces Beatriz to experience the full weight of their loss. Until Beatriz reunites with Aurora and is redeemed with her offer of a coat “that means nothing to them but everything to you” (69), she is filled with a deep, impenetrable cold that renders all other coats useless.

The second-generation Mexican immigrants of The Madonnas of Echo Park contend with a particularly complex network of “lies” when negotiating their American identity. Exposed to new cultural images via MTV—and lacking the images of old Mexican neighborhoods as they used to be, such as Chavez Ravine—second-generation immigrants navigate a different set of identity-lies than their parents. As Skyhorse explains in his Author’s Note:

these popular songs [on MTV] throbbed with glamour, desire, and plastic gratification—a reimagining of the American Dream in bright pastels. Our parents didn’t comprehend the words and were fearful that the songs they had fallen in love with growing up would be attached to a language we’d never speak and a country we’d never see (xii).

Not only do second-generation immigrants feel pressure to conform to Anglo-centric American ideals—including the performances of luxury and consumption they see on MTV—the white American figures they identify effectively lie about their own ethnic identities in their art. In the “Borderline” music video, Madonna plays the role of a Mexican chola returning to her home neighborhood, even though Madonna herself is white. In Chapter 7, Angie explains that her idol, Gwen Stefani—a white musician widely known for ethnic appropriation in her fashions—“acts like a badass chola, but you can tell she’s a straight-up rule girl at heart” (127). Ironically, second-generation immigrants such as Aurora and Angie, who identify with white MTV culture, perform the roles of white musicians who are themselves performing the roles of Mexicans.

Ultimately, these second-generation immigrants go through their own process toward redemption. Angie deeply contemplates the complexities of her friendship with Duchess, her friend who was deeply loyal to their Mexican neighborhood in Echo Park. Aurora rediscovers Echo Park and in so doing begins to realize how much the neighborhood really means to her. Skyhorse offers the book itself as his own apology for refusing to dance with Aurora because she was Mexican: “I’m ready to dance with you, Aurora. I hope you understand why I need to say that to you here, in this way: because a work of fiction is an excellent place for confession” (xx).