Terri de la Peña - The Outwords Archive

A portrait of Terri’s paternal great grandparents Reducindo Enriquez and Ramona Marquez, circa 1860s. Terri shares, “Ramona’s feather Francisco Marquez was co-owner of the 1839 Mexican land grant Rancho Boca de Santa Monica which covered Santa Monica Canyon, Pacific Palisades, and parts of Topanga Canyon in Southern California. There is some distortion because the original is a tintype, and a cousin gave me this copy of the tintype.” Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri’s paternal grandparents Esteban de la Peña and Amelia Enriquez (daughter of the couple in the last photo) with their daughter Micaela, circa 1899. Terri shares, “1899 was the year my Aunt Micaela was born as my Dad’s older sister.” Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri’s mother Juanita Escobedo with Terri’s maternal grandmother Higinia Alarcon Escobedo. Terri shares, “They immigrated to the U.S. from Chihuahua, Mexico in 1919. This photo is circa late 1920s or early 1930s, before my parents’ marriage in 1934. My grandmother Higinia was a very strong-willed woman and has been a major influence in my life.” Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Birth information about Terri de la Peña from the back of her baby photo, 1947. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A baby portrait of Terri, around six-months old, in a pink and white lace dress, 1947. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri, age 3, in a white dress, 1950. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Another portrait of Terri, age 3, in a white dress, 1950. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri’s parents Juanita Escobedo and Joaquin de la Peña, circa 1980s. Her father Joaquin died in 1986. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

The fiction group at the Flight of the Mind Women Writers’ Workshop in McKenzie River, OR, 1988. Front row, L-R: Valerie Miner (the instructor) Treth (Linda Trethaway), Molly Martin, and April Sinclair. Back row, L-R: Terri de la Peña, Mary McNeil. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri de la Peña and Valerie Miner on a bridge at the Flight of the Mind Women Writers’ Workshop, McKenzie River, OR, 1988. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri in a blue shirt, circa 1988-89. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri with triangle earrings, 1989. Photo Credit: Tee Corrine, editor of

A portrait of Terri with triangle earrings, used for an author photo for an anthology. 1989. Photo Credit: Tee Corinne, anthology editor. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Tee Corinne and Terri de la Peña reading at Sisterhood Bookstore in front of various bookshelves, West Los Angeles, CA. Treth (Linda Trethaway), another contributor to the

Terri de la Peña and Barbara Wilson at the OUTWRITE conference, San Francisco, CA, 1991. Barbara was co-owner of Seal Press, which published Terri’s novel

Terri de la Peña and Michael Nava, a gay mystery author, at the OUTWRITE conference, San Francisco, CA, 1991. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri de la Peña and Nancy Nordhoff, the founder of the Hedgebrook writing retreat at Hedgebrook Farm, in front of the Hedgebrook Cottages, Whidbey Island, WA, 1993. Hedgebrook features a Writer-in-Residence Program for “visionary woman-identified writers” at age 18+, and Terri was awarded a writing residency in 1993. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri “at work”, typing next to various drafts in the Fir Cottage at Hedgebrook Farm, Whidbey Island, WA, 1993. She drafted

A portrait of Terri. Photo Credit: Robert Giard. Terri shares, “he photographed me a few days after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, outside my Santa Monica apartment. Inside, the apartment was in total disarray due to the earthquake.” Giard used this portrait in his book

Terri de la Peña smiling with the Off Our Back Collective during her East Coast book tour for

L-R: Terri’s partner Gloria Bando and Terri de la Peña hugging at Golden Threads Feminist Bookstore, Hartford, CT, 1994. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri speaking at Comisión Femenil’s “A Salute to Latin Writers” event in Los Angeles, CA, 1996. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A portrait of Terri outside her UCLA office for an article in UCLA Today, 1996. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A Latina Writers’ Workshop meeting that was held at Terri’s home, Santa Monica, CA, 1997. Terri is in a pink shirt in the back row. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri relaxing at home with her “Grand Canyon pal”, a stuffed burro, in Santa Monica, CA, 2004. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri riding a horse in Monument Valley, AZ, 2007. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri riding a horse through a river in Zion National Park, UT, August 13, 2013. Terri shares, “This was two months after I retired from UCLA.” Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri riding a horse through the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, AZ, 2015. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

Terri riding a horse at Hacienda Los Ficus, Peru, 2015. Photo courtesy of Terri de la Peña.

A pink embossed flier from the Sisterhood Bookstore that reads, “Spring 1992 Author Appearances” across top and features Terri in the second event listing: “Sunday May 17th, 2:00PM: Publication party for TERRI DE LA PEÑA, for her first novel Margins, an exploration of family relationships, recovery from loss, creativity, and love; a memorable portrait of the Chicano lesbian as daughter, sister, friend, and lover.” Each event listing has a tulip drawing next to it.

A partial article from UCLA Today titled, “Growing Up Latina: Novelist’s Story of Coming Out” by Cynthia Lee, pg. 3, published on August 30, 1996. A cropped portrait of Terri is featured in the right hand corner.

Terri de la Peña was born on February 20, 1947 in Santa Monica, California. Her father was a descendant of the Marquez family, one of the earliest families to settle in the area due to the land grants parceled out in the early nineteenth century; her mother and grandmother immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico in the 1920s. Terri grew up working class in a Mexican American Catholic family, where her father worked in an automotive center and her mother ran a beauty shop from home. She grew up attending St. Anne’s Catholic School, where the nuns encouraged her to go to college, but her parents instead pushed her to learn trade skills so she could work and get married with kids as soon as possible.

In early childhood, Terri knew that she liked girls and that it would not be acceptable in her culture. She had no concept of lesbianism and had no role models to look up to for it. She started watching cowboys in Westerns as a form of escapism and began experimenting with queer storylines about Mexican Americans living in the rural American west. She survived a traumatic hit-and-run at age 24, and afterward began including the theme of car crashes in her writing as well.

In the meantime, Terri attended LA Trade Tech out of high school to learn commercial art, followed by moving between jobs in the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, the UCLA Chemistry Department, various law firms, and then back to UCLA for administrative roles. As her parents started wondering why she was still unmarried, she began joining feminist and lesbian circles in LA by coming into the Sisterhood Bookstore and getting involved with a Latina Writers’ Group. There, she submitted her short story “A Saturday Night in August,” telling the story of a closeted Chicana going to an Equal Rights Amendment Rally and encountering a very out lesbian, to the Chicano Literary Prize, where it won third place.

Terri went on to publish her first novel, Margins, in 1992, featuring a romance between a Mexican American woman and a white woman. It was the first Chicana lesbian coming out novel published in the world. She wanted Veronica, the Mexican American protagonist, to come out at a young age and serve as a role model for other Latinas. Terri herself came out through this book — her colleagues at UCLA swarmed to buy the book and then realized what the story was about. She started visiting UCLA classes to do readings and give speeches, where she was often approached by students saying that her novel saved their lives.

Terri then released Latin Satins, her second novel detailing the adventures of a singing group who lived in a group house in Ocean Park; and Faults, a novel about the 1994 earthquake, which was nominated for the Lambda Literary Prize. She also published a short story, “Beyond El Camino Real,” detailing a road trip she took with her ex girlfriend across the country, where she observed the difficulty of racial integration in all-white conservative rural America.

During this time, Terri had several romantic relationships that ended because of her demanding work commitments. She also survived leukemia, worked full time, and cared for her mother who had Parkinson’s. Terri maintains that her identity as a published lesbian Chicana writer empowers her by bringing together the otherwise fragmented parts of her identity that make up her life story. She hopes that her works can serve as role models and examples for Mexican Americans navigating their queer identities.

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