Campo Grande, a neighborhood in the western reaches of Rio de Janeiro is home to nearly one million people. It is so big that the neighborhood in fact became a city of its own in 1968. The city has significantly grown over the decades and its rural history has been all but replaced by a modern-urban landscape. Just as is the story in all corners of the globe, extraordinary people consistently emerge from these seemingly ordinary places. So, roughly three decades after the once pastoral Campo Grande became an urban hub, a girl called Vitória was born into this vast and bustling part of the world.
The continued urbanization of the area wound up offering young Vitória a concrete playground full of town squares, parks and a seemingly endless number of neighborhoods named after every saint in the book to explore. One day, the barefoot, grade school aged Vitória cast her futebol (Brazilians would be angry if we referred to it as soccer) aside at her local park and began to use the park’s mini ramp as a slide, glissading down its curved banks on a plastic soda bottle. The local skaters weren’t upset, in fact they told little Vitória to come back the next day with sneakers and they would teach her to skate. That was it. No more futebol, no more plastic bottles. V was now a skater and her mom knew it. Despite the family being tight on expenses, for her next birthday Vitória got the item that would go on to shape her life.
She became the local ripper in the neighboorhood, catching attention in a country renowned for its skateboarding talent. Luckily, she caught the eye of the Element Brazil crew and began skating for Element when she was only 16. Now at 23-years-old, Vitoria Mendonça has since left Campo Grande for the skate capital of Brazil in São Paulo and as you read this she has just recently become the newest pro on the Element Global Pro team. She has simultaneously taken it upon her to use her
platform as a way to inspire a new generation of young skaters from all walks of life. As someone who takes massive pride in her identity as a black, queer woman, Vitória knows that labels can act as a barrier. So while she continues to fall more in love with skateboarding, she hopes she can break those barriers for anyone who just wants to live… and skate. Congrats to Vitoria Mendonça, the newest pro skater of Element Skateboards. -Element
Check out her new Pro part on Thrasher Mag today and stop by Orbit Skate and Boutique to grab your Element Deck today!!
