Pidgin as Equalizer and an Attempt to Regain a “Native” or “Local” Identity in Yamanaka’s Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater

Pidgin as Equalizer and an Attempt to Regain a “Native” or “Local” Identity in Yamanaka’s Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater

By: Tori Howard

            In Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater Lois-Ann Yamanaka uses Pidgin vernacular for the voices of each character: all native Hawaiians, and Japanese and Filipino immigrants. I discussed this in further detail in my midterm, but the gist of what I discussed is that this use of a common language between all characters on this sugar plantation proves that a connection to the land also ties the people to each other regardless of racial backgrounds. The equivalence is seen in “Kala: Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater” where Kala, a native Hawaiian character says, “Of course neva have cartoons./ You stupid or what?/ You neva seen one X-rated movie before?” (Yamanaka 22). This is a very clear use of the Pidgin language being directed from a native—to the narrator Lucy who is living in Hawaii, but of Asian descent—placing both of these characters on the same language field. Further, Lucy narrates in Pidgin itself when she says in “Kid,” Bernie and Melvin went up Mauna Kea/ couple weeks ago for hunt goat,” (102) showing that both characters speak in Pidgin, and Lucy thinks in Pidgin, binding both Lucy and Kala if not in class struggle, language and literature struggles throughout the story.

 Pidgin is historically the hybrid of second language English-speaking Hawaiians using phonetics to understand each word of English while still employing Hawaiian ones as well, in a sense, regaining a national unity and pride over a fundamentally Hawaiian/local hybrid language, showing that not only has Yamanaka employed Pidgin to unite natives and locales, but that this is a struggle that still continues in Hawaii in modern times.

Is there anything further regarding the Pidgin use in Yamanaka that you guys found that I may have missed? What are some of your thoughts?