Dressed in a purple and turquoise seashell bra and an iridescent green tail, the professional mermaid Carrie Wata swam through a hula hoop that a group of children held underwater in a pool at a birthday party outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The birthday girl was astonished to see that Wata was a Black mermaid. “You look like me,” Wata recalled the girl saying. Her mother had previously told Wata that the child was insecure about her hair and brown skin tone.
But throughout the party, Wata said that she saw the child become more self-assured as she mimicked Wata’s moves, swimming through the hula hoop and flipping her tail underwater as well. “And at that point she knew she was a mermaid because she saw a mermaid that looks like her,” Wata said. “She was 100% confident that she could be a mermaid, too.”
Professional mermaiding, an occupation that began more than a century ago with the likes of the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, has gained traction in recent years, capturing the imaginations of children and adults at birthday parties and company events, as shown in the 2023 Netflix documentary MerPeople. Carrie Wata, based in Miami, Florida, is the founder of Afro Mermaid Co. Photograph: Submerge Underwater
While there are no official records on the number of professional mermaids in the industry, Fast Company estimated that there were about 1000 in the US in 2015. Wata, whose real name is Melanie Carrie Schneider, is part of a new wave of Black mermaids who have taken up the activity as a hobby or profession. They are seeking to diversify a largely white industry, with some Black mermaids also using mermaiding to advocate for aquatic safety in the Black community.
“Back in the day, we didn’t have the right to even play mermaid in pools, we didn’t have that privilege,” said Wata, whose Miami-based, aquatic-themed company, Afro Mermaid, sells clothing and accessories and hosts mermaid events. “But when you look at history, Africans were the very first water people.” For Wata, whose stage name is a nod to the African water spirit Mami Wata, the Black mermaid community provides a space to acknowledge the African context of mermaid lore and to find a sense of lightness and playfulness underwater.
Due to the advent of communities such as the Society of Fat Mermaids and The Afro Mermaid Summit, an annual four-day convention, it’s now become more commonplace to see Black merpeople in the US. “For Black people to now be able to play around with fantasy and dress up and be free, we can be weirdos too,” Wata said. “The fantasy world and Comic-Con and dressing up has almost been a space only for white people, and when a Black person wants to do it, it’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ We’re finally coming to an age where we can really express ourselves in the most genuine way and be our authentic selves.”
‘It feels like a family reunion’
While some Black mermaids say that they have faced discrimination in the industry from customers who do not want to book them, they find security and support in virtual and in-person communities.
At the annual Afro Mermaid Summit, which Wata started in 2021, participants discuss ocean conservation, and learn about the history of Black mermaids in African cosmologies. A sacred water ceremony in which participants give thanks to the water incorporates African drummers – and there’s also a dance competition and a fashion event. The summit has grown by 10% every year, said Wata, with about 100 guests attending in 2024. “The Black culture is very heavy in this event,” Wata said. “It feels like a family reunion, or like a family barbecue.”
The Society of Fat Mermaids, founded by Mermaid Chè Monique, has a Facebook group of 2,500 members where people post photos of themselves in tails or swimming for the first time. “People just cheer you on and support you,” Monique said of the online community.
A viral photo helped launch the burlesque dancer’s career as a professional mermaid in 2019. In the picture, Monique wears a multicolored tail and a sequined seashell bikini top while lying on a bed of snow, her tail raised toward the sky as if in mid-flip. The image was shared more than a thousand times. “You’ve got to give the people what they want,” Monique said. “Apparently they wanted me.”
While some users flocked to the comments section to criticize her as a plus-sized Black woman, Monique said, she viewed the vitriol as a tool that helped admirers find her. “They’re like ‘oh my gosh, you’re so fat.’ And then their friends see it, and they’re like ‘Oh, actually, I kind of like that,’” said Monique. “They might not say it out loud, but they follow me.”
The Alexandria, Virginia-based entrepreneur now performs underwater at events with the group Circus Siren Pod and also teaches people how to perform underwater with a mermaid tail. Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Monique started the Instagram hashtag #MerfolkForBlacklives, where she posts videos, for instance, about the higher incidences of drowning among Black people compared with the general population due to a historical lack of access to swimming pools. Her company sells T-shirts with images of plus-size Black mermaids, with one bearing the words: “Fat mermaids make waves.” Since Monique created her society, she said that most of the major tailmakers, including ones that she’s consulted with, have expanded their sizes.
Black spirituality and mermaid mythology
While mermaids are usually depicted as white women in western media, it’s little known in the US that African storytelling has long featured Black people in the water with supernatural abilities – though they weren’t always thought of as mermaids.
“In several African cosmologies, the water has always been a spiritual plane or a spiritual realm. Sometimes it’s the site of the afterlife,” said Jalondra A Davis, an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside.
“En ocasiones, se trata de una frontera entre el mundo material y el espiritual, como en el concepto congoleño de kalunga [umbral acuático entre mundos] y siempre se ha creído que las personas que entran en el agua posiblemente tienen otra vida allí.”
“La investigación de Davis analiza la idea recurrente en la literatura, poesía y arte negro que capturaba a los africanos que cayeron por la borda durante el comercio de esclavos transatlántico se convirtieron en sirenas, o criaturas acuáticas, un concepto que ella llama ‘cruce de seres acuáticos’. En la década de 1990, por ejemplo, Drexciya, un dúo electrónico negro de Detroit, creó un cuento afrofuturista de un imperio náutico formado por los descendientes de mujeres negras embarazadas que fueron arrojadas de los barcos de esclavos en las notas del álbum de 1997, la Quest. Los bebés conocidos como drexciyanos aprendieron a respirar bajo el agua y nadaron desde el vientre de sus madres.”
“En UC Riverside, Davis impartió una clase sobre sirenas que examinaba los orígenes y transformaciones de la sirena hasta la actualidad, incluyendo lo que los estudiosos citan como la primera diosa sirena conocida como Atargatis de Siria. En su podcast The Merwomanist Podcast, Davis discute la fantasía y la espiritualidad en la tradición de las sirenas negras. Su fascinación es lo que inspiró a Davis a aprender a nadar a los 37 años durante la pandemia. Ahora Davis nada en piscinas con su cola como su personaje de sirena, conocido como un ‘mersóna’, Mami Melusine.”
“‘Las historias de sirenas negras deben ser el centro’”
“Mirando hacia el futuro, algunos aficionados y profesionales dicen que la tradición, las plataformas y las fantasías sobre las sirenas negras pueden servir como vehículos para discusiones más amplias sobre la crisis climática y la opresión sistemática.”
“Las historias de sirenas negras en las cosmologías africanas, que a menudo presentan deidades negras evocando tormentas para perturbar los barcos de esclavos, por ejemplo, pueden ayudar a mostrar la conexión entre la explotación de las personas y la degradación ambiental, dijo Davis. ‘La economía de plantación de la esclavitud lanza este nivel de extracción de recursos del planeta, y tener una fuerza laboral que puedes seguir explotando a través de esos sistemas raciales creados te permite seguir destruyendo la Tierra.'”
“Las historias modernas sobre sirenas negras también pueden iniciar conversaciones sobre cómo la explotación de las comunidades marginadas alimenta la industria, lo que a su vez aumenta la contaminación. Por ejemplo, en el libro de Jewell Parker Rhodes, Bayou Magic, la deidad africana representada como una sirena, Mami Wata, ayuda a una niña a proteger su comunidad de la costa del Golfo de un derrame de petróleo.”
“‘Lo que defiendo en mi trabajo es que las historias de sirenas negras deben estar en el centro de esa conversación [sobre la crisis climática]’, dijo Davis. ‘Porque la violencia racial es clave para la violencia ecológica. No puedes salvar el medio ambiente sin justicia racial.’”
“Mermaiding también ha inspirado a entusiastas a ampliar otros aspectos de sus vidas. Para Clover Jené Mermaid, cuyo mersóna es como una sirena hada vampiro, su historia de origen implica que nació en Seychelles, África oriental, hace 140 años. (Jené solo usa su nombre comercial por razones de seguridad.) En la cumbre Afro Sirena 2024, Jené impartió una clase con Wata sobre cómo las sirenas pueden crear sus propias historias únicas. La construcción de mundos la ha inspirado a querer visitar la nación a la que no tiene conexión en su vida como masajista médica en Dallas, Texas.”
“En el futuro, Wata planea organizar otro evento de la Cumbre Afro Sirena durante el verano, y le gustaría formar un grupo internacional de sirenas negras. ‘Es agradable estar en una época en la que puedo mostrar a la nueva generación una sirena negra’, dijo Wata. ‘Siento que soy el sueño más salvaje de mis ancestros.'”