Mother and daughter have an antagonistic relationship throughout the text, as Linda seems to want Audre to know the realities of her identity as a black woman however, sensual moments of connection show the complexity of this relationship. This statement harkens back to previous explanations of her mother’s wish to return to her homeland, Grenada, and this longing for home is assimilated into her daughter. Lorde embodies this very politic as she mines her memory and articulates the scenes that have formed her identity with striking verisimilitude.įor example, in one of numerous scenes describing her complicated relationship with her mother, Lorde states, “I am a reflection of my mother’s secret poetry as well as her hidden angers” (32). In the case of black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept” (267). This strong identity seems analogous to the identity politics discussed in the Combahee River Collective statement, which states, “the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression. restaurant (70)), what resonates most loudly is the ways that her relationship with her mother and subsequent other female relationships inform her identity formation. As Zami, Lorde has recreated “in words the women who helped give me substance” (Lorde 255).Īlthough Lorde examines numerous facets of her identity formation, including racism (she is spit on for being black (17) the family’s landlord hangs himself because he has to take in black tenants (59) the family is not served in a segregated Washington, D.C. Taken together, these women foster within Lorde the cohesive self. Her mother, however, is the emotional center of this memoir, the derivation and impetus for the patterns of connection and exploration that Zami encounters through the central female figures of her identity formation.

This term is derives from her parents place of origin: the West Indies. Zami is “a Carricacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers” (Lorde 255). With viscerally sensuous language and articulate self-reflexivity, Lorde takes readers on a journey through her childhood and early adulthood, demonstrating how she comes to realize her true name. How does a black lesbian woman negotiate a cohesive self? In what ways do race, sexual identity, and gender intersect and render a human being who is liberated by the very things that oppress her? Audre Lorde explores these themes in her self described “biomythography” Zami.

My name is zami