Garrido 1

Arlyne Garrido
Adler
English 100 #3638
5 November 2014
Lying Does Not Pay Off
In the first chapter of his novel, The Madonnas of Echo Park, Brando Skyhorse depicts
Hector, the narrator, as a hard-working Mexican immigrant attempting to attain his residency in
the United States. His struggles throughout the chapter take the audience through his journey of
cheating on his wife, abandoning his daughter, and assisting in a murder- which then results in
being deported back to Mexico. One major characteristic of Hector that is evident throughout the
chapter is that he is a liar. Lying in this chapter is significant because it can eventually lead to
failure.
The first incidence where Hector lies is when he cheats on his wife, Felicia, with Cristina,
the pretty checker at Pilgrims Supermarket. He makes a long list of reasons (call them lies)
why (10) cheating on his wife is okay. Although he feels he deserves to do this, he made a vow
to always be faithful to Felicia, and breaking that promise to his wife is the worst thing he can
possibly do in his marriage. He comes to realize what he did was wrong, and cheating on his
wife leads to losing her even though he [begs] Felicia to take [him] back, thinking her silence
over [his] blatant adultery meant a brief exile (12). This becomes a problem for Hector since he
is not a United States citizen and must be married to Felicia, who is a citizen, for at least two
years before applying for residency; and they have not even reached their first anniversary. He is
determined to gain his residency in the United States and is careful not to be caught because if he

Garrido 2
is, the immigration police will call for him to be sent back to Mexico. However, since he cheated
on Felicia and she refuses to forgive Hector, he is forced to leave his home and abandons his
daughter, Aurora, who learned her lack of enthusiasm for [his] work from her mother (16),
which is a result from when Hector and Felicia separated.
After all this lying, Hector finally comes to tell the truth for once because he is drunk
after spending time with Tenant, his boss. This is during the annual Lotus Festival and he is
noticed by a police officer because Hector was holding a sledgehammer wrapped in a tarp, and
was ordered by Tenant to dispose of it, and that seemed suspicious. Hector explains that anyone
who works on the street knows [there is] a rule in L.A. the cops have: Special Order 40, or what
the trabajadores call santo cuarenta. The cops [cannot] stop you if they think [you are] an
illegal, only if they think [you are] an illegal about to commit a crime. This is to encourage
illegals to come forward if they have information about a crime. They also [cannot] hold you for
more than twenty-four hours if the one thing [they have] got on you is that [you are] an alien. Its
tougher in L.A. for illegals now, meaning cops have to ask you where [you are] from no matter
what. But as long as you lie and tell them [you are] from here, they [will not] check your
background or report you to immigration (23). The officer asks if he is a citizen, but Hector
does not answer. All he is thinking is, Everything I have earned in this life by lying, I have lost.
By lying (23). After not answering the officer for a long period of time, this results in Hector
being deported back to Mexico. There is an implication that he tells the truth here since he did
not answer the police officer, and telling the truth results in him getting deported to Mexico at
the end of the chapter.

Garrido 3
Telling the truth can pay off, but not in Hectors case. Since he lies throughout most of
the chapter, the truth sends him back to Mexico which crushes his dream of reaching his
residency in the United States.