A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

themselves naturally and revealingly in Pidgin only. It is this language which gives her
works the emotional power and unquestionable honesty that most of her ethnicity critics
grant her. A comparison of the authors mentioned so far shows to what different ends the
language may be employed: While Murayama aims at presenting an important part of
history from a true insider’s perspective, Lum’s pieces convey nostalgia for a seemingly
morally simpler time. Bradajo promotes a locally rooted philosophy, derived from
indigenous Hawaiian concepts such as aloha ‘aina as well as from the hippie
counterculture’s peace movement.
Yamanaka, however, is neither nostalgic nor interested in history as such. Apart
from producing gripping and violent narratives, she wants to show the undercurrents of
racism, violence and handed-down oppression that American colonialism and its
plantation system have produced and that continue to infuse and govern the lives of her
characters. The ethnicity controversy shows that she portrays very real Island problems.
Hence it is legitimate to read “her characters’ struggle with emerging identity as it is
entwined with language, i.e., the pidgin they speak and the standard English that they are
told should be their goal” 498 as a fictional treatment of the larger issues at work in
Hawaiian society. Remembering “the stigma of pidgin in my own mouth,” the author is
convinced that “that’s where real writing comes from – your own language that is the
closest to you because first language is the language of emotion.” 499 Her authorial credo is
evidence for a slowly changing climate that empowers the younger writers: “I am devoted
to telling stories the way I have experienced them – cultural identity and linguistic
identity being skin and flesh to my body.” 500 Yamanaka paraphrased this assertion as
“Pidgin English is ‘the heartspeak’ – the communication mode when voicing anger,
personal hurt, and humor.” 501 Put simply, that is what her characters do. However, here
the author provides opponents with a target, for such a statement can be interpreted as the
cliché reduction of vernacular speech to a language of emotion, counteracting the struggle
of Local writers (and Pidgin speakers in general) to prove its adequacy in intellectual and
other contexts.
498 Shea 1998: 33.
499 Ibid.
500 Shea 1998: 32.
501 Quoted by Rodgers 1996 (226) from an interview in the Honolulu Advertiser (05/14/1995).
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