Solimar Otero - Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas.

Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas. — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas." online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...80

Yemoja

Yemoja

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

Edited by

SOLIMAR OTERO

and

TOYIN FALOLA

Cover image, Adenike of Lagos, Arturo Lindsay, 2003. Digital print, 24" x 21", in the collection of the artist.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2013 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu

Production by Eileen Nizer
Marketing by Anne M. Valentine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic

diasporas / edited by Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4384-4799-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Yemaja (Yoruba deity) 2. Mother goddesses. 3. Afro-Caribbean cults. 4. Cultural fusion and the arts. 5. African diaspora in art. 6. Goddesses in art. 7. Orishas in art. 8. Sex in art. I. Otero, Solimar. II. Falola, Toyin.

BL2480.Y6Y46 2013

299.61211dc23

2012043678

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To our mothers, especially Maria Julia Melchor

Yemay Asesu, Asesu Yemay

Yemay Asesu, Asesu Yemay

Yemay Olodo, Olodo Yemay

Yemay Olodo, Olodo Yemay

Traditional Afro-Cuban song for Yemay

Contents

P ART 1
Y EMOJA , G ENDER, AND S EXUALITY

Chapter 1
Nobodys Mammy: Yemay as Fierce Foremother in Afro-Cuban Religions

Chapter 2
Yemays Duck: Irony, Ambivalence, and the Effeminate Male Subject in Cuban Santera

Chapter 3
Yemay y Ochn: Queering the Vernacular Logics of the Waters

Chapter 4
A Different Kind of Sweetness: Yemay in Afro-Cuban Religion

Chapter 5
Yemoja: An Introduction to the Divine Mother and Water Goddess

P ART 2
Y EMOJA S A ESTHETICS : C REATIVE E XPRESSION IN D IASPORA

Chapter 6
Yemaya Blew That Wire Fence Down: Invoking African Spiritualities in Gloria Anzaldas Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and the Mural Art of Juana Alicia

Chapter 7
Dancing Ach with Yemaya in My Life and in My Art: An Artist Statement

Chapter 8
What the Water Brings and Takes Away: The Work of Mara Magdalena Campos Pons

Chapter 9
The Sea Never Dies: Yemoja: The Infinitely Flowing Mother Force of Africana Literature and Cinema

Chapter 10
A Sonic Portrait with Photos of Salvadors Iemanj Festival

Chapter 11
Yemay Offering a Pearl of Wisdom: An Artist Statement

Illustrations and Other Media

Cover image, Adenike of Lagos, Arturo Lindsay, 2003. Digital print, 24" x 21", in the collection of the artist.

Color Gallery follows page 186

Acknowledgments

Many people and organizations helped to make this project a reality. Many thanks for the support and feedback received from the Harvard Divinity Schools Womens Studies in Religion program, especially Ann Braude, who sponsored some of the research in Cuba presented in this book. We are grateful as well for the support received from the University of Texas at Austin. We also would like to acknowledge the support received from Dean Gaines Foster, from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Louisiana State University. Thank you also to the chair of the Department of English at LSU, Rick Moreland, who enthusiastically believed in this project. We give much thanks to all at the Womens and Gender Studies (WGS) program at LSU. WGS provided necessary support for completing this project, in addition to offering an important intellectual venue for working through the main components of this work. LSUs programs in Louisiana and Caribbean Studies and Atlantic Studies were both extremely helpful and supportive of the collaborative endeavors presented in this book.

There are also many colleagues whose feedback was crucial to developing our vision in the anthology. We are grateful to Aisha Beliso-De Jess for her thoughtful comments in formulating the early stages of this project. Lucinda Romberg also read early versions of the work and provided much insight. We also thank Norma Cant and Katey Borland for their useful readings and responses. LSU colleagues Bill Boelhower, Benjamin Kahn, Lara Glenum, Pallavi Rastogi, Carolyn Ware, Rosan Jordan, and Frank De Caro graciously commented on the project in ways that greatly improved our scope and focus. We are grateful to Arturo Lindsay, Juana Alicia, Jamie Davidson, Nelson Eubanks, and Erin Colcord for graciously allowing us to reproduce the powerful artwork and photography found in this book. We especially want to thank the spiritual communities in Africa, Cuba, Brazil, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the United States who generously allowed their wisdom and knowledge to inform and shape the research presented in this book. Finally, we would like to recognize our families and loved onesEric Mayer-Garca, Rai Otero, Raymond M. Otero, Robert and Blanca Alvarez, and Maria Julia Melchorfor their moral support and belief in the volume. A dupe, nuestras gracias.

Note on Terminology and Orthography

Some of the chapters in this book use the diacritical marks that express Yoruba tones and consonances. Yoruba is a tonal language that moved across the Atlantic into contexts where Spanish, Portuguese, and American dialects of English incorporated the language within their own phonetic structures. The differences in orthography reflected in the chapters that follow indicate these shifts in language use. We use the spelling Yemoja in the introduction of the volume for clarity. Wherever appropriate, we keep the authors intended usage of Yoruba terminology. In this manner, the names Yemay, Iemanj, and Yemoja relate to the same deity in different cultural and linguistic contexts.

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 Yemanj

Yemay es Reina Universal porque es el Agua, la salada y la dulce, la Mar, la Madre de todo lo creado / Yemay 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 Cabreras Yemay y Ochn.

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,

Next page

1234567...80

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas.»

Look at similar books to Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas.. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Grisel Y. Acosta

Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity

Susy J. Zepeda

Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas: Remembering Xicana Indigena Ancestries

Oliva M. Espin

Latina Realities: Essays on Healing, Migration, and Sexuality

Loida I. Martell-Otero

Latina Evangélicas: A Theological Survey from the Margins

Otero

Spirituality 101 for the Dropouts of the School of Life A Review for the Final Exam

Murphy Kevin P.

Historicising Gender and Sexuality

Fausto-Sterling

Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality

Solimar Otero

Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures

Masami Tamagawa

Japanese LGBT Diasporas: Gender, Immigration Policy and Diverse Experiences

Diouf Mamadou

Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World: Rituals and Remembrances

Elizabeth Pérez

Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions

Karen Christian

Show and Tell: Identity as Performance in U.S. Latina o Fiction

Discussion, reviews of the book Yemoja : gender, sexuality, and creativity in the latina/o and afro-atlantic diasporas. and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.