The Haunting of Chavez Ravine, a novella about La Llorona, is now out in the world. The title is apt. While I never lived in Chavez Ravine, it’s haunted me through the years.

I have two other books set in the old neighborhoods of Los Angeles: The Monsters of Chavez Ravine and The Night Lady. Though they all take place in Chavez Ravine, all three stories are standalone novels, and can be read in any order.

I’m not alone in my preoccupation with the old neighborhoods north of downtown Los Angeles. There are some wonderful nonfiction books that recount the sad history of the tight-knit, rural community, destroyed by evictions and a city plan that never materialized. (Please scroll down for book recs.)

Since I write fiction, my stories are my way of keeping the memories of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop alive. And because I grew up hearing my grandmother’s scary stories rooted in Latin American folklore, I included ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural creatures.

While my mother, aunts, and uncles shared their memories of living in what was described as “a poor man’s Shangri-la,”, I had to research the events and politics behind their stories. They never talked about the reasons for the evictions, or the indignity of reading the eviction notice that referred to their beloved community as “blighted.”

My family was not among the residents who protested the evictions and resisted the city’s efforts to oust them. I believe they were too fearful and too intimidated to do that. They took the city’s buyout offer and left. That doesn’t mean they weren’t affected by being kicked out of the place they loved. I’m pretty sure my mother suffered from eviction trauma, although she never described it that way. She simply didn’t have today’s framework to describe those feelings.

Honestly, I believe they internalized the shame of living in a community the newspapers called slum. The Castaneda’s were proud people, which couldn’t have sat well.

Here’s what you need to know about The Haunting of Chavez Ravine:

~Unlike my Dark Earth Rising novels, my stories set in Chavez Ravine aren’t horror. I’d call them supernatural suspense, though they can have spooky moments.

~Until 1950, Chavez Ravine was a collection of three Mexican American neighborhoods. It’s where Dodger Stadium is today. My mother and her family were among the residents evicted to make room for a public housing project that was never built. The Dodgers came a few years later. That’s why many of the evictees and their families were and (and are) big Dodgers fans: they didn’t blame the team.

Some things I learned while researching La Llorona, the spirit that features in my story.

#1: In the 1960s, stories began circulating about La Llorona at a juvenile detention center in California. Folklorist Bess Lomax wrote a paper about the accounts and published it in an academic journal.

Some of the reports mirror the kinds of stories I heard growing up: La Llorona has long black hair and wanders around wailing, mourning the loss of her children, though she drowned them in Mexico. Rejected at the gates of heaven, she’s doomed to haunt lakes and rivers. At the juvie center, rumors circulated La Llorona was attacking bad kids.

The creepiest account: La Llorona killed her daughters and “their bones are buried in her back.”

That’s a new one for me, and the visual is terrifying.

#2: One fascinating take on the legend goes back to the days of Tenochitlan (now Mexico City) before Hernan Cortes and his Spanish troops arrived. A Franciscan friar collected the accounts of La Llorona from the Náhuatl-speaking people.

Some scholars believe La Llorona is connected to the Aztec belief in the goddess Cihuacoatl, and the legend is rooted in indigenous myth and folklore. Cihuacoatl, known as the Serpent Woman, was revered for her connections to fertility and motherhood.

But not all experts agree. Some believe La Llorona stems from contact with the Spanish, who brought with them stories of European ghosts known as “White Ladies.”

#3: This may be my favorite take on La Llorona. That she’s actually La Malinche, the native woman who translated for Hernan Cortes and was critical to his conquest of Mexico. Malinche had children with Cortes.

She’s often depicted as a traitor, but in reading what little is known about her, I can’t wrap my head around that interpretation. She had so few life choices that to me, she’s a survivor. But I digress.

Rudolfo Anaya wrote about the La Malinche version of La Llorona in his short novel, The Legend of La Llorona, published in 1984.

My favorite movie about La Llorona:

La Llorona – A 2019 Guatemalan film that was nominated for a Golden Globe, Best Picture-Foreign Language

The official description: As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade the opulent home of a retired Guatemalan general, the ghosts of an unforgivable sin haunt his family and an entire nation that must come to terms with the devastating truths of its past.

This was an original and heartbreaking take on the legendary weeping woman, and I absolutely loved it.

Here is the summary of The Haunting of Chavez Ravine:

Los Angeles, 1948. Lily Bantacorte’s life at home is unbearable. Her little brothers are demanding and her lecherous stepfather won’t leave her alone. So Lily turns to her estranged aunt in Chavez Ravine for a place to stay, but her timing couldn’t be worse.

Lily isn’t the only new arrival in Chavez Ravine. La Llorona, the legendary ghost of Mexican folklore, has taken up residence too. Aunt Lencha is a famous healer, and maybe even a witch, and the community is counting on her to save them from the ghostly weeping woman. As encounters with La Llorona escalate, Lily must confront her fears and beliefs if she’s going to survive.

If you’re looking to find out more about the history of Chavez Ravine, you can’t go wrong with these well-researched, well-written books:

Stealing home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between by Eric Nusbaum

Shameful Victory: The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Scare, and the Hidden History of Chavez Ravine by John Laslett

Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, photographs and text by Don Normark

A short, but wonderful documentary about Chavez Ravine: Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story narrated by Cheech Marin and scored by Ry Cooder