The Madonnas of Echo Park

Chapter 8 is narrated from Aurora’s voice as she returns to Echo Park as an adult. She stays with her mother, Felicia, with whom she still has a tense relationship. Felicia seems bitter that Aurora has moved away from the old neighborhood (and her Mexican-American identity), even though she admits that Aurora could no longer afford to live in Echo Park. Felicia herself is a hold-out who refuses to sell to gentrifying residential developers, no matter how much money they offer. She tellingly named her daughter after Aurora Salazar, the woman who refused to be evicted from Chavez Ravine when Dodger Stadium was being built (152).

Aurora helps her mother clean her house, as she does each month. The two women argue back and forth with one another as Aurora examines the items accumulated in the house. These items include numerous family photos from which her father Hector’s image has been cut out, replaced with pictures of the musician Morrissey, whom Aurora idolized as a teenager.

In the midst of their arguments, Aurora accidentally forgets to close and lock the gate, and Felicia’s dog, Blackjack, gets loose. Aurora then spends the rest of the day looking around the neighborhood for Blackjack. Her search takes her to the home of her mother’s romantic partner, Vince, and the furniture store of Lorenzo (the store is an old neighborhood institution). Lorenzo asks Aurora to deliver a chair to the “Coat Queen” (173) who lives in Angelino Heights. The Coat Queen is none other than Beatriz Esperanza.

Beatriz’s strange, opulent house contains suggestions of her Virgin Mary story, including a fountain filled with roses and a pile of used coats that have failed to keep her warm. Aurora offers Beatriz her old coat: a vestige from her teenage wardrobe that Felicia made her wear, warning it was cold outside. Beatriz takes Aurora’s coat, and the Virgin Mary’s prophesy— “they will give you something that means nothing to them but everything to you without question or expectation” (69)—is complete.

Aurora wanders around Echo Park Lake and the Lotus Festival, narrowly missing Blackjack. She briefly encounters Angie and her daughter, Maria, who is wearing Gwen Stefani gear. They remark on the changing shape and demographics of the neighborhood, and Angie says she likes these changes.

Aurora re-encounters Beatriz at the festival. Beatriz thanks her for her good deed. Soon after, Aurora finds and catches Blackjack. Her walk home takes her past a shack in a barren field, where a man called The Lord lives. The Lord takes Blackjack away, telling Aurora, “he’s not ready to go home with you yet” (192). Delirious and exhausted, Aurora believes she sees Morrissey standing by Echo Park Lake, and then she passes out.

Aurora wakes up on her mother’s couch to find that The Lord has returned Blackjack to his home. Felicia explains that The Lord is a dog trainer who was trying to “protect what’s theirs,” and Aurora tells her “I do, too” (196). Felicia tells Aurora that she and Vince are thinking of moving to San Diego, but Echo Park is Blackjack’s home. The book ends on an ambiguous note, but suggests that Aurora may return more permanently to her home neighborhood, stating, “This is the land we dream of, the land that belongs to us again” (199).