{"id":52771,"date":"2017-03-23T00:02:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T00:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52771"},"modified":"2017-03-23T00:03:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T00:03:56","slug":"exclusive-bruno-mars-opens-up-about-the-loss-of-his-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52771","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Bruno Mars Opens Up About the Loss of His Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: Bruno Mars Opens Up About the Loss of His Mother<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Latina<\/a>
\n2017-01-30<\/p>\n

Jesus Trivino<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Photographs by John Russo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

MR. EVERYTHING<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruno Mars<\/a> redefines what it means to be a Latino man.<\/em><\/p>\n

BRUNO MARS DOESN\u2019T WALK; HE GLIDES.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if he\u2019s perpetually ready to perform a Motown<\/a>-style choreography set in front of tens of millions watching the Super Bowl<\/a> (which he has done twice in the past four years)\u2014even easing his way into a suburban L.A.<\/a> pizza parlor, where moments earlier, his sexy, chart-topping 2012 hit, \u201cLocked Out of Heaven<\/a>,\u201d was on blast, as if anticipating his appearance. Mars just has that aura. His outfit is straight Fania<\/a>-era salsa<\/a>\/blaxploitation<\/a> swag\u2014Gucci<\/a> cap over his curls; sunglasses; an open shirt, floral and teal; tan shorts; dress shoes (no socks, to accentuate those smooth legs); and minimal gold jewelry. He orders a plain slice, which he sprinkles with garlic powder, and a root beer. It\u2019s obviously a joint he frequents, since he knows all the fellas by name, and the workers aren\u2019t taken aback by the superstar in their midst. He walks to an open booth, wolfs down his food, controlling his urge to eat six more slices, he jokes, and proceeds to be the smoothest cat to ever have lunch at an old-school checkered-tablecloth pizzeria.<\/p>\n

Mars learned about charm, confidence, and estilo early in life. \u201cMy whole sense of rhythm is because my dad was teaching me bongos as a kid,\u201d he says of his father, Pedro Hernandez. \u201cHe\u2019s an old-school working musician, so that\u2019s where the pinky rings come from, the patent-leather shoes, the suits, and the pompadour. It all stems from watching my father. I remember at the time, me and my sisters would be a little embarrassed when he would take us to school in his big-ass Cadillac<\/a>. No one had<\/p>\n

Cadillacs in Hawaii<\/a>. But my dad would show up in some boat-looking Caddy<\/a> wearing some silky shit, and we\u2019d run out into the car as soon as possible. And here I am wearing the swap-meet gold, driving Cadillacs,\u201d he says with a laugh…<\/p>\n

…But before he was Bruno Muhfuckin\u2019 Mars, he was E-Panda\u2019s lil\u2019 bro, Peter Hernandez, born and bred in Hawaii to a beautiful Filipina and Spanish mom and Puerto Rock<\/a> and Jewish papi from Brooklyn<\/a>. His childhood musical career is well-documented on YouTube\u2014 at 4, he was the cutest Elvis Presley impersonator<\/a> ever, performing with his family for oohing-and-ahhing tourists in Waikiki<\/a>. As the years passed and his skills developed, Mars found himself dealing with racial-identity issues in the multicultural 50th state. \u201cGrowing up in Hawaii, there are not too many Puerto Ricans there,\u201d says Mars, \u201cso because of my hair, they thought I was black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of not being easily categorized is something Mars has dealt with his entire life. When he moved to Los Angeles at 18 to make a serious go in the music industry, record label executives asked, \u201cWhat are you? Are you urban? Are you Latin?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people who have this mixed background that are in this gray zone,\u201d he says, leaning forward to make his point. \u201cA lot of people think, \u2018This is awesome. You\u2019re in this gray zone, so you can pass for whatever the hell you want.\u2019 But it\u2019s not like that at all. It\u2019s actually the exact opposite. What we\u2019re trying to do is educate people to know what that feels like so they \u2019ll never make someone feel like that ever again. Which is a hard thing to do. Because no one can see what we see and no one can grow up with what we grew up with. I hope people of color can look at me, and they know that everything they\u2019re going through, I went through. I promise you.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruno Mars redefines what it means to be a Latino man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,13743,14646,8,20],"tags":[4062,26640,26641,19350,1392,4064],"class_list":["post-52771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-interviews","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-bruno-mars","tag-jesus-trivino","tag-john-russo","tag-latina","tag-music","tag-peter-gene-hernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52771"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52775,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52771\/revisions\/52775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}