Emilihter Kihleng Analysis

Emilihter Kihleng is a Guam born pohnpeian who “has spent much of her life moving back and forth between her native island of Pohnpei, Hawai’i, and Guam.” Although she was born in Guam she still holds a very close connection to her homeland of Pohnpei and speaks strongly about its issues and her experiences this can be found in her unique collection of poetry, My Urohs. As stated by Albert Wendt about Emilihter’s book that “it is Kihleng’s first collection; it is also the first collection of poetry in English by a Pohnpeian poet. But, more importantly, her voice is a new fusion of English and Pohnpeian, the result of her upbringing and life in Pohnpei, Guam, Hawai’i, and the USA.” She is also a graduate of UH Manoa with an MA in English

These themes consist of discrimination, health care issues, military influence, and unfair economic issues. The theme of discrimination can be found in many of the poems within the collection but a prime example comes from the very first poem listen in the collection, it is titled To Linda Rabbon Torres. This poem speaks of a young Chuukese boy who was shot by a woman from Yigo in Guam at first the poem speaks of shooting a gun for fun and celebration, but then transitions to shooting for hatred of something in this case Micronesians. This is shown when Emlihter writes “You would never admit to this now, but on the inside, did you secretly want to shoot someone, like one of those Chuukese neighbors of yours?/ One of those Micronesians always causing trouble in your little “peaceful” Yigo neighborhood?” This shows stereotype that Micronesians have within that area another example of Micronesian stereotype found in the poem is in the lines “One of those stealers, pugua chewers, heavy drinkers without any indoor plumbing” . With these stereotypes the Micronesians are heavily stereotyped not only in Guam but in other areas also such as Hawai’i in which Micronesians are thought of as “ghetto” and lazy. Another theme expressed in this book is the unfair economic system that a lot of pacific islanders

Originally I did have stereotypes of pacific islanders which were not the most positive namely of the people from Micronesia but after reading the book and having watched the videos in class the stereotypes I previously had have disappeared. Although there were some words that did not make sense to me because they were not explained or I just was not able to comprehend the meaning of the word I was able to understand the message of the majority of the poems, this is most likely due to the knowledge that I have gained through the class. I was also able to empathize with a lot of the situations spoken of in the poems due to being Filipino in which my people do face similar issues as pacific islanders such as discrimination. All in all I enjoyed reading the book and being able to see that a lot of the preconceived notions that I had on pacific islanders mainly Micronesians were