Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas

Introduction

xvii Introduction Introducing Yemoja Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola Mother I need mother I need mother I need your blackness now as the august earth needs rain. —Audre Lorde, “From the House of Yemanjá”1 “Yemayá es Reina Universal porque es el Agua, la salada y la dulce , la Mar, la Madre de todo lo creado / Yemayá is the Universal Queen because she is Water, salty and sweet, the Sea, the Mother of all creation.” —Oba Olo Ocha as quoted in Lydia Cabrera’s Yemayá y Ochún.2 In the above quotes, poet Audre Lorde and folklorist Lydia Cabrera write about Yemoja as an eternal mother whose womb, like water, makes life possible. They also relate in their works the shifting and fluid nature of Yemoja and the divinity in her manifestations and in the lives of her devotees. This book, Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas, takes these words of supplication and praise as an entry point into an in-depth conversation about the international Yoruba water deity Yemoja. Our work brings together the voices of scholars, practitioners, and artists involved with the intersectional religious and cultural practices involving Yemoja from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and South America. Our exploration of Yemoja is unique because we consciously bridge theory, art, and xviii Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola practice to discuss orisa worship3 within communities of color living in postcolonial contexts. We also explore the ways that gender and sexuality inform these communities’ religiosity. The contributors in this volume examine Yemoja and her relationship to the construction of gender and sexuality in society and culture through essays and creative works. Some of the creative works in the book include poetry, website production, photo essays, and artists’ statements. All of the works are organized into two sections: “Yemoja, Gender, and Sexuality” and “Yemoja’s Aesthetics: Creative Expression in Diaspora.” These two areas of focus share the evaluative lens of cultural critique that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of how Yemoja traditions situate gender and sexuality in society as transformative and fluid modes of being and doing. Our two unique areas of exploration fit into existing and emerging theoretical, cultural, and historical understandings of Yemoja. Our foremost goal in this volume is to facilitate scholarly and artistic investigation into the connections among orisa religion, art, and practice in interdisciplinary and transnational ways.4 Our volume uncovers work being done on the discourse and practice of Yemoja traditions and their connections to national identity, gender, sexuality, and race. Indeed, orisa-worshipping communities are sites where subjectivities are creatively produced within social and cultural contexts. The chapters and other works in this volume also illustrate the ways that ritual, narrative, and art about Yemoja help to transform these contexts into several important sites of negotiation. One set of negotiations we emphasize occurs within the African Diaspora, between Afro-Atlantic and Latina/o understandings of Yemoja . Communities that lay claim to Yemoja traditions often inhabit the multiple cultural, social, and racial locations that these descriptors suggest . Therefore, in this volume we are especially interested in addressing and exploring the geopolitical and cultural border crossings that Yemoja religious practices reveal both in daily life and in theoretical terms. To do this, we must examine how the discourses of fluidity found within African and African Diaspora Yoruba religious practices and arts emerge in their many historical and cultural contexts. Here fluidity includes a notion of flexible traditions that are open to hybrid and variable spaces found through Yoruba, and especially orisa, itinerant cultural logics and variable aesthetics.5 From this perspective, many of the contributors presented in this volume seek to uncover the ways that Yemoja is understood and reconstructed to reflect, respond, and challenge colonialism as well as the legacy of slavery in the African Diaspora, Latin America, and the Caribbean. xix Introduction Finally, the entire volume considers how constructions of gender and sexuality are deeply connected to Yemoja traditions. Our authors explore the complexity of these constructions within a variety of religious and creative contexts. Thus, this volume emphasizes how images of Yemoja in art, literature, and ritual question what kinds of aesthetics and counter-aesthetics determine the contours of gender and sexuality performed through the figure of Yemoja. Yemoja is a deity known in Yoruba-based Afro-Atlantic religious cultures for her ability to dominate natural phenomena, especially aquatic zones of communication...