Monica Palacios

Monica Palacios is a Chicana lesbian American playwright and performer, specialising in Chicana, queer, feminist, and lesbian themes.

She has charted the intersection of queer and Latina identities in Latinx communities, with their mutually marginalising impact.

A trailblazer stand-up comedian in the 1980s and 1990s, Palacios is now better known for her work as an award winning playwright and activist.

Her works are taught in many schools and colleges, where she has served frequently as a director of student theatre.

Palacios attended Chico State University and transferred to San Francisco State University, at which she earned a BA in Cinema with a concentration in screenwriting.

She has been producing theatre works for over three decades.

In her specifically Chicana, queer, feminist, and lesbian performances, Palacios emphasizes activism and community organizing.

She combines aspects of race, culture, and sexuality in her performances, and she was one of the first openly lesbian/queer stand-up comics in 1982 in San Francisco.

She has created several one-woman shows, plays, and screenplays.

Her poems, plays, and anthologies are taught in universities and examined in scholarly settings, usually in the fields of LGBTQ Studies, Chicano Studies, and Feminist Studies.

Palacios works with students of a wide range of ages (from elementary students to college students) and has served as a writer, director, and dramaturge for over 400 student theatre works.

Born and raised in San Jose, California, Chicana lesbian comic Monica Palacios was one of six children and, according to Palacios herself, had a stable childhood.

Her older sister also came out as a lesbian later in life, a subject that eventually became a bit of Palacios’ titled “Double Dyke Familia.”

She attended an all girls Catholic school where her love of comedy was already visible.

She loved to watch sitcoms and stand up comedians on TV and would try to imitate them for her classmates.

She even tried doing stand-up in her high school English classes.

After high school, she attended Chico State University where she began to question her sexuality, however at the time, she had a boyfriend.

Although she didn't love him, she thought about marrying because she thought it might just make her life easier.

But she eventually broke up with him and came out as bisexual.

As she continued to dig into her sexual identity, she knew she needed to “get the hell out of dodge” and at age nineteen Palacios transferred to school in San Francisco, came out as a lesbian, and began performing stand-up.

Palacios “discovered her love for comedy and her sexual identity at the same time.” When she got to school in San Francisco, she hung out in comedy clubs and “took notes.” Then, on her twenty third birthday she went on stage as a dare to herself.

At the beginning of her career, she didn’t want to do lesbian content, she thought it would ruin her dreams of having a mainstream comedy career before it even started.

In an interview, Palacios stated that she was “ a novelty back then in 1982 because I was a 23-year-old California native Chicana comic and a lesbian, to boot!

Being very in your face about nationality and sexuality, I was called "controversial" and other names that begin with a 'C'.”

Although she first performed at straight comedy clubs, which were known for being harshly racist, sexist, and homophobic, she quickly found herself performing at popular Queer performance venue The Valencia Rose Cabaret.

Palacios first went at the Queer establishment, which was founded in 1982 and was the first gay comedy club in the country, just to watch other stand-ups perform.

But found herself on stage “almost immediately” and “she was hooked.” She describes the venue as a “big love fest” where she felt fully comfortable to be herself

Palacios had first performed at a straight comedy club to a tepid audience response.

But, a few nights later she found herself at The Valencia Rose.

She did the same set she had done at the straight club, but she added a bit about her girlfriend and the audience exploded with laughter.

The Valencia Rose was a place where comics felt relief from the typical, straight clubs.

After three months of performing at the Valencia Rose Cabaret, she began getting paid to headline there.

An experience she describes as “incredible and empowering.”

Though she quickly made a name for herself as a lesbian comic, she found that this “closed as many doors as it opened.

Straight clubs wouldn’t let her perform and in 1987 she headed to Los Angeles where she, once again, attempted to become a mainstream performer.

But it was a “rerun” of what had happened in San Francisco with straight clubs not being accepting or welcoming to her.

The more time she spent in comedy clubs the more she realized it wasn’t her scene, they had an “aggressive atmosphere.” So she went away and wrote her first solo show, “Latin Lezbo Comic.” In the performance, she sought to put a positive example of a Queer woman on stage.

She told hilarious stories about her family and her girlfriends.

With this show, her career as a one woman show performer and a playwright was born.

Though she attempted to make her work relatable, she refused to compromise who she was for profit.