Da Word-- Lee Tonouchi

“Who can tell the class what is wrong with Barry’s writing?”

“Oh Barry, he da kine. He stay abundantly writing in one freestyle kine manner using, I mean utilizing, large quantities of neologisms, ah?” Mits attempted trying fo’ incorporate as many of da new coconut-kine vocabulary words as he could remembah into dat one response.

“The problem is that both Barry AND Mits use too many colloquialisms,” Laurie volunteered, dis time without raising her hand.

“Try like, dat not wot I sed?” Mits whispered into my ear.

I want to call Lee Tonouchi an author, but he’s more than that. Tonouchi is also a language advocate, a promoter of the literary power of Hawai’ian Pidgin (aka Hybolics). When I prepared to read his collection of short stories, Da Word, I was a little concerned that the writing would feel gimmicky. Tonouchi’s common usage of Pidgin in mainstream and academic outlets—graduate school papers (including his Masters thesis); book reviews, letters to the editor, features, and columns; his resume (and interview) for the Ford “Emerging Pacific American Leaders in the Arts Convening”— is not without cultural statement. He calls himself “Da Pidgin Guerrilla,” not shrinking from his role as a linguistic and cultural activist. That said, I needn’t have feared Da Word— Tonouchi is a master of narrative voice.

There are many deep, conceptual things at work in Da Word, both linguistic and literary, and one could easily go there in a classroom setting. On the other hand, the stories are just plain entertaining and, for the most part, humorous.* I could see it being very relatable for young male readers. Beyond the language itself, Da Word is full of observations about Hawai’ian culture and the islands' relationship with Mainland. Overall, very insightful and broadening, but also a lot of fun.

*There is one story in particular (“Black Leather Hot”) with mature content—not graphic, but troubling. For this reason, I recommend Da Word for 8th grade and up.