Living Pidgin: Contemplations on Pidgin Culture by Lee A. Tonouchi
I am glad to have revisited this book, if only for my current non-fiction/essay book project. What I admire about Lee A. Tonouchi is not only his consistent use of Pidgin throughout the entire body of his critical writing, but also that he himself is quick to point out the contradictions of being “da Pidgin guerrilla,” in which he expresses a justified, healthy, militant pride in pushing for Pidgin in institutional spaces, having written (a portion of) his MA thesis in Pidgin for a degree in English, outing the state’s governor (at the time, Filipino American Ben Cayetano) and Senator Dan Inouye as speakers of Pidgin, proposing not only Pidgin classes but Pidgin cultures academic departments and degree programs, but! And here is where it gets interesting, he tells us also that while many students come to him for letters of recommendation, etc for graduate school and for fellowships, he informs them if he were to write a letter for them, said letter would be in Pidgin. He tells them this as a warning, and he tells us that he is wary of bringing students, bringing others into the battle he’s fighting and the movement he is trying to incite.
And in dubbing himself “da Pidgin guerrilla,” he clarifies for us not only his political position on language and culture and Pidgin’s potential for liberation, but also that the other locals (educators, writers) who appear to advocate for Pidgin – well, perhaps they don’t push/advocate enough. He calls out Lois Ann Yamanaka for her “language wheel,” which basically places all languages within specific social contexts. Tonouchi argues that with the language wheel, “standard english” still dominates as the proper language to speak in school, in government, etc.
These things he writes in the context of the shame and inferior status given to Pidgin speakers, or rather, people who live Pidgin. It has become that people who live Pidgin who have been made to feel they are inferior and bound not to succeed have internalized the shame and inferiority. They enforce the “If you speak Pidgin, you no can ____,” on themselves.
So I like this: the attention to the contradictions, the shift of enforcement from the institutions/power structures to the people themselves.
I do see Living Pidgin as a creative work, though it clearly is a body of critical work (writing for publication and writing for oral presentation in academic spaces). There is much more I can say but will stop here for now.
This book is very interesting and not only for Pidgin speakers (or standard english speakers). And yes, “the attention to the contradictions” is probably the thing I prefered in this book too.
Hi there, thanks for your comment. I think what I appreciate most about Tonouchi’s attention to the contradictions is that he’s constantly checking himself, allowing himself to be open to others’ ideas along the way. There’s a section in the book where he talks about conversations with younger Pidgin speakers, and they tell him terms like “my bad” and “da bomb” are now/have become Pidgin terms. And while his first reaction is to be resistant, due to those terms coming from other places, he also knows that the Pidgin he grew up speaking was markedly different from the Pidgin his predecessors spoke, and that it is constantly undergoing transformation.
I remember he wrote about slang and Pidgin and the way that Pindgin was integrating slang, with youngest speakers. This way to think language without the purity, in an opening way. Not as a dead language. There’s something between a conservative way and a performative way. (There’s something that deals with this idea, for me, in the way regional languages are perceived – my English is too bad to tell what I mean :), sorry – my International English ;))
In France, regional languages are called “Patois” – I was very surprised with the word “Patwa”.
Hi again, Alain, yes I think I know what you may be trying to say about “regional” language versus (maybe) national language, and that the speakers of regional languages are considered inferior (marginal, less educated) to speakers of the national language which is spoken in universities, in government, etc.
Another thing he says is about standard English, which is considered the national language, is also a living language. He reminds us that we speakers of “standard English” are not speaking the Queen’s English, or Elizabethan English. I think he believes there is no such thing as standard English.
What I mean is that the regional languages are often perceived as something we must preserve (the conservative way – a mummified language) vs the “national” or “standard” language, which is dominant (and also doesn’t face the same problematics). Tonouchi is between the conservative way (conserve the H.P.E.) and a progressive way (use it and make it evolving – with slang for example).
He reminds us that there are lots of ways to speak a language. If there’s something standard, there’s always variation: regional, native or not native speaker, social, &c. (I read a good book about it, in French: La variation sociale du Français, after having read Living Pidgin – Tonouchi wouldn’t have expected this! ;))
Spoc you lettas.