Who is Michael and what are your roots in this city?
My family and I were born in Echo Park and it is the only place we have resided for two generations. I know the majority of the skaters that roam this neighborhood and I see them as friends and not just fellow skaters. Before skating took up the majority of my interests, I used to do a lot of cinematography, video editing, a bit of graphic design.
I had a passion for film-making and skating all my life.I was hyped at the opening of Die Krusin right next to the lake, you know, right on Glendale across the street from Burger King. I saw the shop and felt really inspired. I wanted to create videos that could ultimately have some degree of influence and also become a better skater. Sadly, they closed their doors almost immediately after opening.
How did their closure affect you?
I felt extremely disappointed. I remember thinking “oh wow, finally a skate shop in Echo Park!”
How did that let down influence you into doing what you’re doing today?
I do feel some sense of guilt because perhaps Die Krusin wouldn’t have closed if I had just simply bought more stuff there. Now that I am envisioning a gift from myself to the people of Echo Park, I don’t want to let anyone down the way I felt that they let many skaters in this community down.
The origins of this skate shop go back to freshman year in high school. I have been working since then, at one point juggling two different jobs. Instead of spending mindlessly and carelessly like I saw a lot of the people around me doing, I had saved the majority of the money in a see through jar. Even when my parents would give me a dollar a two, I would stuff it in the see through jar even if it meant that I wouldn’t eat for the day and had to wait until I came home after work or after skating.
What is the importance behind a business such as this one entering this neighborhood?
Echo Park is subject to criticism such as the topic of gentrification and big businesses running small businesses out of this part of the city. Angeleno Skate Shop mission embodies a small business trying to thrive in a time where it may seem like the odds are stacked against shops such as these.
There definitely is a sense of weight on my shoulders by trying to be there for the community and give back to it by creating a business that would mean a lot to people, but I feel as if it is the least that I could do for this small part of Los Angeles that two generations of my family have been able to call home.
How will you as a skater in L.A. grow simultaneously with Angeleno Skate Shop?
In a sense, being a business man is synonymous with skateboarding because it takes experience and hard work to be both. The ambition of opening up something such as a business takes a lot out of person just like learning a new trick or adapting to a new skate environment does.
This will be learning process. Only time will tell. I will continue striving to be a better skateboarder and an over all better Angeleno. I will put in the work for this shop to remain open and be something the people who look up to it can feel proud of just as I hope my family feels about me and this endeavor I decided to tackle on so early on in my life.
Tell me, why Los Angeles? What makes you want to put in so much of your time to build something here and not anywhere else.
Because this is my home. I have always been here and it is all I know. “Angeleno” can mean a variety of things but to me it is someone who was born and raised in Los Angeles. That describes me and i want that to extend into what Angeleno Skate Shop stands for. I really love L.A. People talk a lot about how New York and other major metropolitan cities are so great and a cool place to live for a couple years in your life. I feel otherwise. I feel that this is where Michael Cardenas was meant spend his life.