Tatiana de la tierra

tatiana de la tierra
de la tierra in 2009
Born	14 May 1961  Villavicencio
Died	31 July 2012  (aged 51) Long Beach
Occupation	Librarian, writer

tatiana de la tierra (May 14, 1961 – July 31, 2012) was a Latina lesbian writer born in Colombia. She was the creator of the first international Latina lesbian magazine Esto no tiene nombre; the quarterly magazine was distributed in various parts of the United States and to many Latin American countries, including Colombia. Much of her writing was bilingual and bicultural featuring both the English and Spanish language and contained very sexual content. Through her work, de la tierra gave voice to LGBTQ people of color and inspired other writers to speak about sex and sexuality in an honest manner.

Early life

Tatiana de la tierra was born in Villavicencio, Colombia on May 14, 1961, and emigrated to the US in 1969, at the age of eight. Her family settled in Homestead, Florida, and that was where she first discovered her passion for books and librarianship. She befriended the head librarian at the elementary school she attended in town and volunteered there. She was trusted by the head librarian to such an extent that she was given a key to the back room where all the sexuality books were kept, and she would peek at these at a young age. Although de la tierra did not come out as lesbian until 1982, she knew she was attracted to females around the time she reached age 10 or 11. When she was young, she would explore the female body by creating games to play with some of her girl friends that included looking at each other's nipples and vaginas. However, when she became a teen, de la tierra desexualized herself because some of her friends and peers made her feel like outsider for being so curious about sexuality. From then on, she only harbored secret crushes on girls, and did not have any romantic partners while growing up. It was not until de la tierra graduated from South Dade High School in 1979 and went off to college that she began exploring her sexual preferences once more.

De la tierra's awareness of her sexuality later became a very important part of her career as a writer. She fell in love with poetry before even reading the work of any lesbian writers. Around the time that she was 11, she read Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Renascence" and was instantly hooked.

Career

De la tierra attended Miami-Dade Community College straight out of high school and received her associate degree in 1981. It was there that she had her first official library-related job as a librarian assistant. She then attended the University of Florida, where she attained her bachelor's degree in psychology in 1984. In the 1990s, de la tierra began editing and publishing Esto no tiene nombre (This has no name), which later became known as Conmoción and was some of her most famous work.

Esto no tiene nombre

Esto no tiene nombre was a quarterly Latina lesbian magazine that had bilingual content and published the work of other renowned Latina writers like Cherríe Moraga, Achy Obejas, Carmelita Tropicana, Laura Aguilar, Marcia Ochoa, Juana María Rodríguez and Luz María Umpierre. Much of de la tierra's early work was self-published and distributed by-hand at gatherings, including at the Encuentros de Lesbianas Feministas de América Latina y del Caribe ("Gatherings of Lesbian Feminists of Latin America and the Caribbean"). Esto no tiene nombre actually started off as a magazine without a title and de la tierra tried to get its readers involved in the process of naming the magazine. After much debate the magazine's name became Esto no tiene nombre. Its title is a symbol of rejection towards the heteronormative label and image of Latina lesbians. It was the first Latina lesbian magazine distributed internationally. de la Tierra published an article in the journal Aztlán that detailed the internal politics and editorial conflicts that surrounded the publication of these magazines, points of debate connected to the Sex Wars of the era. The magazine's content and call for activism was inspired by the feminist work of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and publications such as This Bridge Called My Back.

Later work

After a while, Esto no tiene nombre and Conmoción stopped publishing because of a lack of funds. Around 1995, de la tierra decided to change her style of writing a bit. She noticed that she had spent many years writing about Latina lesbianism in an effort to give that community a voice, but now she wanted to try writing more about whatever she pleased. De la tierra was diagnosed with lupus in 1990 and this prompted her decision to try something different to better herself as an author. She decided to attend the University of Texas at El Paso, where she got her Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing in 1999. De la tierra also attained a Master's of Library Science from University at Buffalo in 2000. Right after graduating from Buffalo, she started her Jean Blackwell Hutson Library Residency at the University at Buffalo's undergraduate library. Two years later, she was hired by that same library as an information literacy librarian. Later, she moved to California, where she became the director of Hispanic Services at Inglewood Public Library.

Themes in her writing

Sandra K. Soto notes that a lot of de la tierra's work challenges heteronormative views. For instance, Soto notes that in her poem "ode to an unsavory lesbian" de la tierra presents her own queer desires that deviate from the norm; what she finds attractive is what society would label as ugly. De la tierra' became an activist through her work and felt a need to challenge the stereotypes surrounding lesbianism and what it means to be a woman or a woman of color. She also wrote explicitly about fatness as a feminist issue. She also wanted schools to incorporate LGBTQ issues and material into their curricula; more specifically, she hoped this would happen in all English composition classes from elementary to high school as this could prevent homophobia and educate students on the concept of identity. de la tierra's writing style was not only progressive but humorous and daring. One of Conmoción's issues, published by a collective in San Francisco during one of de la tierra's illnesses included a quiz titled "100% Latina Lesbian Checklist" that poked fun at the symbol of 100% Latina Lesbian Vision which graced each issue. The quiz was funny and entertaining, giving the readers points for having a "penis-free zone" (hinting at owning any dildos or similar objects).

Reception

A lot of conservatives were offended by de la tierra's writing because she spoke and wrote so unapologetically. De la tierra did not hold back when it came to eroticism, and she was so free in her speech that her writing was compared to pornography. However, some writers found de la tierra's work inspirational and empowering. She was shameless about discussing sexuality and this encouraged others to speak freely about sexuality, sex, and the human body.

Final years and death

De la tierra struggled with health issues relating to her kidneys, and during her final years she took her health condition into consideration by deciding to stop writing from a Latina lesbian activist perspective and focus instead on other themes of interest. She was told she was in danger of dying several times throughout her life, but it was not until she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer that de la tierra's fight had to end. Although she had many goals she had not yet completed when she was diagnosed, such as completing the memoir she was in the process of writing, de la tierra was at peace with the thought of death and knew her body had put up a long, hard fight.

De la tierra died on July 31, 2012. Her papers and unpublished materials were donated to the University of California, Los Angeles to be studied.

Selected bibliography

• The Hickey (1972)
• Esto no tiene nombre OCLC 38913594
• Conmoción
• La telaraña
• For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology/ Para las duras: Una fenomenología lesbica (2002, Calaca Press, ISBN 978-0971703520) OCLC 51032348
• Porcupine Love and Other Tales from my Papaya Buffalo: Chibcha Press, 2005. OCLC 63172922
• Píntame Una Mujer Peligrosa Buffalo, N.Y.: Chibcha, 2005. OCLC 69002745
• tierra 2010: poems, songs & a little blood Long Beach, Calif: Chibcha Press, 2010. OCLC 983754222
• Xía y las mil sirenas (2009, Editorial Patlatonalli, ISBN 9786079511005) (children's book)

External links

• Official site