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
Recommended Citation
Warrick, E.(2018). Milkfish. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/4754