The Palacio Podcast
Frankie Hernandez is a Writer-Producer Who Just Can’t Help Herself
Frankie Hernandez is a published writer and television producer who has been part of the Los Angeles literary scene for 25 years. Ask her to describe her creative self and she has a quick answer: passionate and just can’t help herself. Well, it’s obvious that she’s passionate, but what is it with the second part? Frankie Hernandez explains how finding her creative voice at a young age through journaling was discovering something innate, something special that you just can’t ignore nor silence.
“…and for the first time, I had a voice. What I said mattered and it mattered to me and then it started to matter to other people. So, when I say I can’t help myself, we all have a voice. So, our voice, what we have to say, is what we have to say. With no judgment. It’s just there.”
Frankie Hernandez
PalacioMagazine.com interviewed Frankie Hernandez via phone last month for the Palacio Podcast. Hernandez shared her poetry and her story of growing up in East Los Angeles, life in the fast lane of the Hollywood Industry, and her latest life chapter as an older college student.
The Writings of Frankie Hernandez
Homegrown
homegrown
east side
bad boys
walk
proud
brown legs
inside
creased baggy jeans
wide smile
just shy
of a laugh
cute names
I like to say
Bobby and
Danny
who tell inside jokes
that won’t make sense
to me
dance slow pull close
bad side
boys homegrown
east
clean pressed
smell like tide and cologne
greet and kiss their
Mothers in Spanish
sleep chests covered in
white t-shirts
double layered
over hearts
From East LA Stories
17 years old
It’s a hot summer morning in East L.A. with nothing to do. Smog filters the neighborhood with a sepia layer. I sit on my porch in cut off Levi 501’s and Johnny Quest t-shirt that I’ve clearly outgrown. Jackie is lucky to have a job painting the front of Vicky’s house, caddie corner to mine. I watch a dark cholo, about 18 years old, walking up the block and past me. He doesn’t look familiar. He is wearing gray loose fitting dickies and a white wife beater shirt. In this heat, he’s wearing a Russian black fur hat on his head. He walks past me to Vicky’s house. “Pop pop pop pop pop pop!!!” like firecrackers goes off. He’s emptying the gun pointed at Jackie who is high on a ladder that’s leaning against Vicky’s house. The cholo runs back in the direction from where he came, toward Whittier Blvd. Jackie climbs down the ladder and walks back home. He sees me and asks, “Did you see who it was? Where did he go?” I shake my head “no.” Jackie is unscathed.
The Frankie Hernandez Biography
Frankie Hernandez is a producer of award-winning films and television. After a devastating divorce, Hernandez the wrote the screenplay The Other Side of Pretty (Created by Frankie Hernandez. Written by Frankie Hernandez and David-Matthew Barnes) which is loosely based on her experience of being single again, moving to Malibu and in the same dating pool as her 20-something-year-old daughter. The Other Side of Pretty is part of the 2018 Sundance Institute – YouTube New Voices Lab.
Hernandez is currently writing and performing collective of short stories called East L.A. Stories about growing up in the ‘70s with Chola fashion, classic rock, and backyard disco parties.
After a successful career working her way up the ranks from high school, Frankie went back to school and completed her studies with an AA degree in Anthropology in May 2018. She’s planning to continue in the fall, incorporating Communication studies into her education.
Born and raised in East L.A., Frankie Hernandez lives in Malibu with her 17-year old daughter Luna.
