Gave a talk last evening in Kyoto on Pidgin (Hawaiian Creole English) and literature. It was set in the context of a series of lectures on the Japanese diaspora sponsored by Ritsumeikan University. I began by giving examples from Bradajo to give the audience a rough idea of what Pidgin is, then moved on to discuss Japanese-American writers such as Milton Murayama, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Garrett Hongo, and Lee Tonouchi. I've already written on Hongo in my book Coyote Reading. But I think I owe each of them a chapter in a future project.
Bradajo is not an AJA, but grew up in Kauai and was one the first poets to write in HCE. I met him last year in Honolulu. Talking about him in front of a very serious audience, suddenly I wanted very much to see him again. We should invite him to Japan.
And the expression AJA. Discussed with Yutaka Yoneyama, the Americanist, about the use of the term. Yoneyama says it's seldom used in the mainland, whereas in Hawaii it once was a very common term. Need to look into this.
