Ylê Asé de Yansã is situated in Araras, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It is a rural community centered in the Candomblé spirituality that invokes Afrocentric ancestral knowledge as the starting point of all the spaces and activities we develop in the quilombo. We call this space using the Yoruba word "Ylê", which means "home", our Candomblé house. We are a quilombo: the term became famous for determining in simplistic ideas the land where enslaved Black people who ran away from a slavery system to create an alternative community. The original name comes from Angola, in the historical moment of the Angolan resistance when warriors would camp in the forest under the leadership of their war ritual chiefs. For us, quilombo is not just a place, it is our roots. Each one of us are quilombo. This idea is in dialogue with the political importance of having our land and the radical awareness that we are connected with the community wherever we go.  

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Quilombo means three pressing aspects: Change, Reparation, and Transnational unity. The historical constraints faced by Black people in Brazil, make quilombo an important physical and political space to understand community-building in a country where we have been systematically denied the right to land, spiritual and religious freedom, and access to basic rights such as education and health. Quilombo becomes a strategic reference of resistance that is not monolithic regarding its meaning, but rich in offering habits, knowledge, and culture to promote space for healing and dreaming of new possible futures with commitment to an ongoing change.

 

Transforming our environments and futures also requires acknowledging Global South Black movements and learning each other's names. We bring to the front of the debate: the Quilombo Anastacia, based in Araras in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.