Biography

MONICA PALACIOS

Critically acclaimed queer Chicana writer/performer Monica Palacios is widely recognized as working at the forefront of Chicana/Latina, queer, feminist performance. Her 27-year career as an artist has strongly embraced activism, community organizing and cultural work. Monica is the first out Chicana lesbian comic to hit the stage during the early 80’s.

She has written several one-woman shows and plays including: Latin Lezbo Comic; Greetings From A Queer Señorita; Sweet Peace and Clock. Her plays, short stories, poems and essays, have been published in numerous pivotal anthologies: Fifteen Candles; Out of The Fringe; Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About; and Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology. Her performance piece: The OH! Show, was recently published in the Spring 2009 Volume of Chicana/Latina Studies, the journal of MALCS. She has been featured as the subject of critical discussion by leading scholars in the fields of Chicano/Latino Studies, and LGBT/Queer Studies. She is on the cover and featured in the book: Homecoming Queers: Desire & Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production (2009 Rutgers University Press) by Marivel Danielson. Monica’s performances and publications continue to be studied in universities nationally and internationally.

April 2009, Palacios presented her show and was the first openly gay performer at the Los Angeles Catholic institution Loyola Marymount University. Ms. Palacios was invited to perform at the conference “Feminisms and Intersectionalities in the 21st Century” May 2009 UC Riverside. Monica was awarded a National Performance Network Residency to participate in the International Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz Festival in Houston April 2009. Palacios was chosen by Adelante Magazine and its readers as a Latino LGBT Community Leader for its 10th Year Anniversary 2008. Monica was an Artist-in-Residence with Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, Santa Ana, where her performance received an “OC Weekly Summer Pick 2008.” Monica was awarded a prestigious Postdoctoral Rockefeller Fellowship from the Center for Chicano Studies, UC Santa Barbara, 2003-2004. During this fellowship Palacios wrote, directed and produced her play Sweet Peace, and received an Indie Award for Excellence in Play Writing from the Santa Barbara Independent Newspaper. She has been honored by numerous national organizations and publications, deservedly recognized for her many positive contributions to the queer Latino/Latina population and the LGBT population at large.

Ms. Palacios is a lecturer at UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and also has taught at Loyola Marymount University, Pomona College, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and UC Riverside. In 2008, her course, Comedy y Cultura: Your Humorous Life, became a core course for the Department of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. Monica also has worked with elementary and high school students and has worked extensively with at-risk-youth and low performing students. Palacios has been a director, writer & dramaturg for over 400 student theater projects.

As the director (1992-2000) of VIVA, Lesbian and Gay Latino Artists, a non-profit art agency, activism and art co-existed as she oversaw the production of art exhibits, performances, readings and other well attended cultural events throughout Los Angeles. Discovering, empowering and promoting queer Latino artists in the community was a policy she believed in then and still carries in her heart today. As Dr. Jorge Huerta, Chancellor’s Associates Professor of Theatre Emeritus, UCSD, states: “Monica is a true pioneer, a queer performer who took the risk long before it was “safe” to speak out about the conditions of the queer communities within the larger communities of Latinas and Latinos in this country.”