Sista Tongue

"... Today, there are Pidgin speakers who perpetuate the language and its message of resistance through literature. Hawai’i poets, novelists, and playwrights … have written literature that both criticizes and heals the inferiority complex and self-loathing that was created by cultural elitists"I appreciated the way Kanae produced Sista Tongue with such an overall poetic rhythm. Sista Tongue is a work of prose, written in both Standard English and Hawai'i Creole English, but several elements led me to read it, from a more birds-eye-view, like a poem. The structure itself was poetic: opening with a "Harold-boy" dominant storyline, followed by a middle section with a more personalized and broad-lens history, and finally, we are returned to see how Harold turned out. With a jump-cut, story-wise, from his early childhood to his baby shower, Kanae communicates everything we need to know about the decades between with through just this moment. Also poetic, I would point to the rhythm Kanae creates using of blank space. This rhythm has, especially on re-reading, a powerful influence on the emotional and intellectual impact of the relatively sparse words. I also see graceful poetry in Kanae's fluid movement through three different tongues: The academic language of the linguistics inserts, the standard English of her memoir/history sections, and the Pidgin she and her brother shared.

An absolutely fascinating read. It forced me to think about a side to academia that I had never been presented with. Would highly recommend!