A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

In Rodney Morales’ collection The Speed of Darkness, one also encounters a
variety of Pidgin forms. “Saint Paul in the Promised Land” features the peculiar
pronunciation of a Filipino speaker, “his Hawaii pidgin English-Ilocano accent,” as the
narrator terms it. Every English v becomes a b, while f turns into p: “‘Paulito jes’ was
here,’ the gaunt figure said. ‘An’ now I see you polks. I tot I no see you polks again […] I
try eat… I bomit…’” (115). Morales renders the Pidgins of different time periods
differently. Thus the characters in a 1920s plantation town insert words from their mother
languages, while the UH students of the 80s switch easily: “Though he spoke English as
well as anybody, Kaeo usually opted for his comfy pidgin” (88).
Written partly in Pidgin, R. Zamora Linmark’s novel Rolling the R’s even bears
its Filipino-ness in its title. The students have to practice the ‘proper’ English
pronunciation of f, v, and th, and are admonished “Do not roll the r’s” (54). Nelson, who
does not identify as Filipino, argues “I don’t speak English like I got a plugged nose”
(67). Again, similar to Yamanaka’s characters, they exaggerate the enunciation of
Latinate words: “a-pro-pri-yate” (7), “d-fo-lee-yate,” “a-bray-sive” (both 8).
Apart from bold and innovative novels and short stories, there are examples of
Island writers creatively dealing with Pidgin in other modes. Lee Cataluna has become
somewhat of a cult figure with her weekly newspaper column and her hilarious Pidgin
plays. With these, Cataluna stands in a tradition of Local vernacular comedy, as
exemplified by the Booga Booga group, Bu La’ia, or Frank de Lima. 508 Her first play, Da
Mayah (=the mayor, a disrespectful take on Local politics), was a big hit in 1998, and in
2002 alone, Cataluna was commissioned to produce three plays. A Pidginized children’s
story, The Musubi Man, is the Local version of the American classic The Gingerbread
Man. 509 Super Secret Squad deals with five UH students “in their eighth-year of their
four-year degree” trying to right what they perceive as Hawaii’s wrongs, while You
Somebody portrays a family desperately wanting to become locally famous only to be
“trumped at every pageant, keiki hula show and karaoke competition by a more gifted,
gallingly more cohesive family.” 510 Just like her plays, Cataluna’s Advertiser column
508 For a short overview of Local comedy up to the late 1980s, see Sumida 1991: 235-7, and for an analysis
of Bu La’ia’s use of Pidgin, see Joseph E. Grimes, “Reactions to Bu: Basilect Meets Mesolect in Hawaii,”
in Rickford/Romaine 1999: 279-86.
509 Musubi is a Japanese rice ball, usually filled with vegetables, sour plum, fish, or SPAM, and wrapped in
nori, seaweed. Even All-American stores like 7-Eleven sell them.
510 Michael Tsai, “Catchin’ up with Lee Cataluna,” in Honolulu Advertiser, 04/23/2002. Keiki are children.
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