Ask a Local

Eh, Local Guy, how you?
I am a nice young haole sistah who moved here shortly after my sweet
sixteenth, and now get 25 years. My question is about speaking da beautiful Pidgin language.
I try not to do it unless talking to someone who knows me really well, cuz get plenny cold looks when I forget to talk haole. So what's da language protocol for one not-quite-local-not-quite-haole, stuck-in-da-middle, occasionally-tourist-looking-kine chick?
Ai kudish, maybe I answered my own question.
Sincerely,
Mixed-Up Girl

Dear Mixed-Up Girl,
Mahalo for your letter, sista. Like most Caucasian folks who was either born in Hawai'i or have been in Hawai'i for a long time, I'm sure you have mastered the ability to talk both pidgin and haole (or Standard American English, as other folks might prefer to call it). When I say "mastered," it only means that in your heart, you believe that you can talk story to whoever, local or not.
Although there are many informal critics, there's no corps of pidgin police waiting to stop you for using too many "er's" or "th's" (i.e. wada as opposed to water or tree as opposed to three, our pidgin connotation of the number after two.) I always tell people this-so long as we are only presented with two choices we always going be in trouble. Life is not black and white. Contrary to what people like to believe, no more such thing as "us" and "them." There really is no such thing as pidgin/no pidgin. When we use this dichotomy to dictate society or how we act, we only find ourselves confused, timid, or afraid to be who we are. As for the pidgin protocol, sista just be who you are. Who are you? Well, you seem to have a pretty good grip on it. That says to me that is the language you should speak is the tongue of a not-quite-local-not-quite-haole, stuck-in-da-middle, occasionally-tourist-looking-kine chick. and to me, there's nothing wrong with that.
By the way, how do you become occasionally tourist looking?

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