The Serious Side of a Latina Comic With a Cause : Comedy: Monica Palacios affirms her identity and her sexuality with a show that attacks racism and homophobia.

Monica Palacios is all for truth in advertising. With a show called “Latin Lezbo Comic”--running at the Celebration Theater in West Hollywood--you could hardly accuse her of less. “People know what that’s going to be about,” she says.

What they may not know is that the Bay Area expatriate has forged a wily attack on racism, homophobia and off-the-rack ignorance that is anything but dour. The “Comic” in the title is just as important as the “Latin Lezbo” to the woman who calls her act “part stand-up, part performance, part Chihuahua.”

Despite the lure of better-paying circuits and mediums, Palacios has, as Lillian Hellman once wrote, refused to cut her “conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

“People say: ‘You should go on Arsenio, on HBO,’ ” Palacios says, relaxing on the couch of her Venice duplex after a Sunday night show. “Yeah, I’ll go on Arsenio if I can talk about my girlfriend. But not if I’m going to talk about everything but my lifestyle. That’s not my goal.”

Her aim, instead, is to be who she is without compromising the agenda. And given the show’s title, that means Palacios has an uphill climb.

“With the government going (toward the) right, I’m going to be one of the first people they pick up. ‘Look at that Latin lezbo comic: easy target.’ But I’m not going to change. I can’t.”

Palacios cut her comedy teeth in the Bay Area at mainstream as well as alternative houses. Once she made her mark as a lesbian comedian, though, the notoriety closed as many doors as it opened.

“When I tried to go back to the mainstream clubs in San Francisco (after appearing in gay- and lesbian-oriented venues), they wouldn’t put me on. They figured that I was going to start doing lesbian stuff and that I was going to bring in gay and lesbian clientele.”

Palacios moved to Los Angeles in 1987. She hooked up with several gay and lesbian organizations and did a few comedy gigs here and there. A comment from an onlooker prompted her to give the mainstream comedy venues a try, although Palacios was wary.

“The moment I walked in (to the Comedy Store), the bouncer looks at me and goes: ‘I’m sorry for staring, but you’re just too beautiful to be doing comedy.’

“He asked me, ‘Uh, where ya from?’ I told him San Francisco and he says, ‘Oh, does that mean you’re gay?’ He paralyzed me. Instead of saying, ‘Yeah, I’m a lesbian,’ I just said, ‘No.’ ”

Unfortunately, it was a rerun of attitudes Palacios had encountered before. For those familiar with the boys’ club that mainstream comedy still is, though, such affronts come as little surprise.

So with the mainstream out of the question until attitudes change, Palacios is making her own opportunities: self-producing and touring her show at alternative venues, art spaces and theaters, as well as pursuing writing projects. (Her show at Celebration Theater runs Friday-Sunday through Jan. 5.)

Palacios, however, also faces resistance from her home camps--including the Latino community. “When I started doing events for Latino organizations, I never did my lesbian stuff because I knew they’d have a hard time with it,” she says. “Latinos have problems with homosexuality because most of the people I’m talking about are Catholics and Catholicism condemns homosexuality.

“But since we’re such a family-oriented culture, the family thing really keeps you together. Because it is strong, even though you have different beliefs and values, you still stay close.”

Locally, groups such as VIVA--an organization of lesbian and gay Latino artists to which Palacios belongs--are also helping make inroads toward understanding. Gay, lesbian or straight, Latinos in Los Angeles still face racism. And that reality is spurring artists such as Palacios.

“I’m more political now,” she says. “The racism that I found coming to L.A. really got me going. It was a kick in the butt.”

It is, she says, a contrast with the relative calm of her childhood spent in San Jose. “Growing up, there were some times when I thought, ‘This happened because I’m Mexican,’ or ‘That’s happening because this person’s not white.’ But it was never really an ugly thing, not so blatant, so constant as it is here.

“There’s supposedly 3 million Latinos (in L.A.) but you wouldn’t know it politically. There are Latina (nannies) with these white babies and people on the street selling fruit. People look at them as if they were completely invisible--or they don’t look at them (at all).

“I cannot be here as a Latina and not do anything about this. I can be onstage and get my message across.”

That message has much to do with establishing with one’s identity--not an easy task when everyone else is trying to do that for you.

“When I was born I was of the Mexican-American persuasion,” she says in her act. “Then I became a Chicano. Then I became a Latina. Then I was a Hispanic. Then I became a Third World member. Then I was a woman of color. Now I’m just an Amway dealer.”