“Milkfish” by Eugene Gloria

You feed us milkfish stew

and long grain rice, make us eat

blood soup with chili peppers,

and frown at us when we lose our appetite.

I remember when I was young and you

told me of that monsoon: the Japanese occupation –

stories of a time before you met my father,

when you learned the language

of an occupied city in order to feed your family.

You were the pretty one at seventeen,

your skin, white as milkfish.

The pretty ones, you said,

were always given more food –

the Japanese soldiers, sentried above

the loft where you worked dropped

sweet yams and you caught them

by the billow of your skirt.

I remember you in sepia-brown photographs

of a mestiza who equated liberation

with Hershey bars and beige nylons

from American GIs – and the season of the monsoon,

as dark as hunger, was not about suffering

but what you knew of beauty.

Paraphrase: The speaker is reminiscing about his Filipino mother telling him stories about her time being interned by the Japanese in the Philippines.

Analysis: The Japanese occupation of the Philippines was seen as a dark time in Philippine history to most, but not to the speaker’s mother, however. According to the speaker, his mother saw “…the season of the monsoon, / as dark as hunger, was not about suffering / but what [she] knew of beauty.” The speaker’s mother was favored during internment because she was “…the pretty one at seventeen,” so she was given special treatment, therefore not suffering like many others.

Why I chose this poem: I don’t know much about Philippine history, so after reading this poem, I did a little research. I learned that the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Philippines just ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Japan occupied the island from then on, but American and Filipino troops continued fighting until Japan formally surrendered in 1945.

            I also chose this poem because the lines, “blood soup with chili peppers, / and frown at us when we lose our appetite” (lines 3 and 4), remind me of when I was younger and my aunts would make dishes, such as blood soup, and tell us kids to eat, even if we weren’t that hungry.