Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Art

Sub-Department

Creative Writing

First Advisor

Nikky Finney

Abstract

Milkfish is a collection of poems that explores familial and generational trauma in a Filipino-American family. Primarily written in first person narrative, it gives voice to a Filipina-American who has experienced controlling behavior, verbal abuse, silencing, and colorist attitudes and behaviors from her father and mother. The collection seeks to understand why the speaker’s parents raised her this way by investigating how the parents were raised in the Philippines. These poems were constructed with the help of interviews between the author and her parents. Additionally, it explores the patriarchal structure of Filipino families and shines a light on “women’s work,” which has been invisible because of this structure. By extension, the collection aspires to demonstrate how its narratives are similar to and different from other Filipino-American and Asian-American immigrant narratives.

Rights

© 2018, Emylisa Warrick

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