The documentary featured on PBS, Pidgin: The Voice of Hawai'i, was an interesting take on the Pidgin language. Kent Sakoda, one of the authors of the Pidgin readings from class, was one of the people advocating Pidgin in the film, along with other native Pidgin speakers. While the documentary offered the history behind how Pidgin came about and included interviews of people who spoke Pidgin, it also incorporated short clips similar to music videos, where a poem or a rap was performed in Pidgin. Lee Tonouchi, a local scholar who wrote his college papers in Pidgin, demonstrated how Pidgin could be manipulated into rhyming lines set to music.
These short clips reminded me of when the class discussed the use of Hawaiian language in music by the group Sudden Rush. The group blended the popular sounds of rap music and Hawaiian language to create a unique medium through which the Hawaiian language could be positively showcased. Just as Sudden Rush was the first music group I heard using “Hawaiian rap”, the Pidgin documentary was the first time I heard what seemed to be “Pidgin rap”. I find it interesting how languages spoken here in Hawai'i, like Pidgin and Hawaiian, can become more appealing to a wide audience by being integrated with a form of popular culture.
Overall, I found the documentary to be informative and inventive. If you would like to watch it, click here.
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