A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

da point.” The uncompromising Pidgin advocate who holds a B.A. and a M.A. in English
and currently teaches at Kapiolani Community College, discovered his passion in one of
Eric Chock’s Pidgin writing classes. There he learned that “you gotta know da history of
all dat’s dea. To be part of da tradition, you gotta know da tradition.”
In 1999, Tonouchi co-founded Hybolics, a literary magazine devoted entirely to
Pidgin, because “dea was a need” for “someting a little mo exciting for try to appeal to
people a little more our generation. […] Get rap. I don’t know if Bamboo Ridge would
ever publish rap.” And Chock acknowledges in return: “He’s exploring different ways to
expand local literature, […] all this adds a lot of energy to the literary scene.” 515
Tonouchi’s short story collection Da Word – published by Bamboo Ridge Press, which
shows that the established journal fears neither competition nor rejuvenation – features
mostly comical slices of Hawai’i life which are thoroughly infused with pop culture
(references to Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, celebrities, pop music, and the like,
employed in surprising ways), and differ from the nostalgic reminiscing that readers of
Local literature are used to by now. Asked about himself as part of a new generation of
Hawai’i writers, Tonouchi said: “I guess we seeing something diff’rent today. […] I tink
Pidgin is a way to make literature more accessable to Local people who might not
normally read. I see myself writing literary comedy, trying fo’ walk da line between
literary and mainstream.” 516 The surface comedy, however, always carries a moral or
philosophical point, and the apparently light humor reveals ‘Local sensibilities,’ capturing
feelings of inferiority and insecurity as well as spite and pride. Da Word is proof that
Pidgin can be an adequate and complex literary medium, while never losing its immediate
conversational quality. Tonouchi is conscientious, detailed, and specific, and his sense of
timing and punch line never fails. Furthermore, his promotion of Pidgin extends to the
Islands’ ethnic mix, resulting in a sense of the value of idiosyncrasies and diversity.
515 All above quotes were taken from the aforementioned Honolulu Weekly interview. ‘Hybolics’ is an HCE
term referring to formal or scholarly speech. Tonouchi said: “So what we wanted to do wit da magazine
Hybolics was to reclaim our word again, and it’s like dey no have to use Standard English to have da kine
intellectual kine ideas.”
516 Interview with Kyle Koza, in Hawai’i Review 22 No. 2 (Summer 1999): 173-80, here 180. In his
introduction to the interview, Koza reflects on the discrepancy between a gradual acceptance of Pidgin
literature and its rejection as an appropriate language in other, academic contexts: “At our forum, I thought
it peculiar that the only time those of us on the panel actually spoke in Pidgin was when we read examples
of the literature” (173). He also mentions that Tonouchi “is the only person I know who has written
academic papers in Pidgin – because he is out to prove by example that Pidgin is as viable as any other
language” (174).
195