TLorihomas Goodson W. Bean & Jim Blasingame The Localization of Young Adult Fiction in Contemporary Hawai'i n this article, I draw on the work of selected World War II and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor contemporary young adult and Hawai'i-based deals with racism and resistance, as well as coming-of- I authors to explore the ways in which local Hawai- age issues framed within the masculine world of the ian adolescent identities are contextualized in young soldier. Both novels feature characters representative adult fiction. The literature reflects the diversity of of Hawai'i’s isolated, multiethnic setting. Hawai'i’s youth, spanning multiple ethnicities, Before moving into the theoretical lens guiding languages and dialects. These are important spaces my reading and analysis of how adolescence is often glossed over or simply ignored in depictions of constructed in both novels, I want to examine some of Hawai'i as an idyllic paradise. In contrast, Wilson’s the distinctive features that make Hawai'i both unique (2000) cultural analysis of local Hawaiian literature as and similar to other communities distant from main- a site of resistance to utopian discourse underpins the stream cities (e.g., Inuit people in the high arctic, need to explore the social construction of adolescence aboriginal groups in northern Ontario, Canada). In in a Hawai'i context with an eye toward local funds of addition, I will allude to recent postcolonial critiques knowledge, pride, and struggle. of how Hawai'i is depicted in the popular mythology Two young adult novels were selected that of capitalist consumption and escape (e.g.. Wilson, represent continuing work by acclaimed local authors, 2000). Lois-Ann Yamanaka and Graham Salisbury. Both authors have achieved recognition for their unblem- Hawai'i and a Sense of Place ished portrayal of youth in Hawai'i. Yamanaka’s Demographically, Hawai'i is predominantly Asian (1999) novel, Name Me Nobody, and Salisbury’s (53%), European-American (33%), Hawaiian and (2005) Eyes of the Emperor both feature characters other Pacific Islanders (10%), and Other (4%) (Davis, coming-of-age in turbulent times. Bazzi, & Cho, 2005). Given its diversity and distance Thirteen-year old Emi-Lou in Yamanaka’s novel from the mainland United States, “Hawai'i represents lives in rainy Hilo town on the Big Island. She is the range of possible heritage language and cultural overweight and struggling to cling to her childhood configurations present in the United States and other friend, Von, a star baseball player. As the novel multilingual societies and, as such, is a microcosm of progresses, Von embraces a lesbian relationship with educational conditions for linguistic minorities” (Davis Babes, one of her teammates on the Hilo Astros et al., 2005, p. 191). Languages in Hawai'i now baseball team. Emi-Lou is jealous of the time Von include: Illokano, Samoan, Korean, Cantonese, spends with Babes, doing everything she can to delay Mandarin, Vietnamese, Tongan, Laotian, Spanish, the inevitable loss that goes with growing up. Thai, Marshallese, Yapese, Chuukese, Ponapean, and Sixteen-year old Eddy Okubo in Salisbury’s Kosrean (from Micronesia), among others (Davis, et account of Japanese-American families at the onset of 27 THE ALAN REVIEW Winter 2008 f27_35_TAR_Winter08 27 3/5/08, 4:36 PM al.). In addition, Hawaiian language immersion now responses to literature that serve as a counter dis- extends through high school and into university study, course to colonial positioning of Hawaiians and revitalizing Hawaiian identity and pride. Hawai'i people as “primitive, exotic, lazy, ignorant, In addition, there is a growing literary movement and sexually promiscuous heathens in need of in Hawaiian Creole English or pidgin. According to protection and enlightenment from the Christians Davis et al., the growing number of novels, poems, (Grace & Lum, 2001, 446).” McCallum (1999) argues short stories and essays featuring pidgin “has trans- that: formed this language from one disdained to one with Realistic young adult literature, until recently, has been a place of acceptance within many classrooms and rooted in the liberal humanist tradition of the individual as communities” (193). Indeed, both Lois-Ann Yamanaka actor, overcoming obstacles in the world (McCallum, 1999). and Graham Salisbury infuse their writing with the The influence of poststructuralist thinking dismantles this day-to-day language of pidgin, an integral part of their tradition, begging the question: “What images of selfhood adolescent characters’ make-up and inner speech. do these fictions offer their readers?” (4) Much of this movement toward embracing the In this view, the individual as actor is located expressive richness of pidgin was fostered by Eric firmly in a social, intersubjective world where social Chock and Darrell Lum, founders of Bamboo Ridge: forces and power differentials render action dialogic Journal of Hawai'i Literature and Arts in 1978. Indeed, and relational (McCallum, 1999). That is, the con- Lois-Ann Yamanaka credits Bamboo Ridge with struction of the self is always undertaken in relation to offering her writing an outlet in its early stages, others and within normative pressures surrounding including her hard-edged poetry collection, Saturday gender, status, and power. Night at the Pahala Theater (Yamanaka, 1993) about The increasing array of young adult literature small town sugar plantation life in Pahala on the Big featuring indigenous people and the Other serves as a Island. In addition, Bamboo Ridge Press books and counterpoint to essentialist views and offers an collections like Growing Up Local: An Anthology of alternative for adolescents to read beyond the tradi- Poetry and Prose from Hawai'i (Chock, Harstad, Lum, tional literary canon (Bean, 2004). This renaissance of & Teter, 1998) have captured the interest of high silenced local voices rings loudly in the poetry, short school teachers and their students in the islands. More stories, and novels of contemporary Hawai'i authors, recently, grass-roots Hawaiian literary journals, often writing in pidgin and disrupting the notion of including Oiwi (www.Hawai'i.edu/vice-versa) and a who really is an outsider (Kaomea, 2003). Indeed, quarterly e-zine sponsored by the University of from a Bakhtinian standpoint: “Thought is virtually Hawai'i at Manoa’s Department of English, add to the impossible outside language and the formation of early and ongoing efforts of Bamboo Ridge by expand- consciousness and subjectivity is thus inextricable ing the outlets for local authors. from the acquisition of language” Throughout contemporary (McCallum, 1999, 11). works by Hawai'i authors, pidgin Contemporary Hawai'i is a Contemporary Hawai'i is a mix figures prominently and serves to of contradictions, isolated geo- demarcate insiders from outsiders. mix of contradictions, graphically yet intimately linked to Indeed, Wilson (2000) notes that Las Vegas and other mainland cities the King’s English is seen as “ka isolated geographically where significant numbers of olelo haole” (the outsider’s tongue). yet intimately linked to former Hawai'i residents live. The mainland is both a far-away Wilson (2000) notes that insider place, 2,397 miles across the ocean Las Vegas and other main- Hawai'i authors like Yamanaka and to Los Angeles, and a regular others struggle with Hawai'i’s presence in the form of the Internet land cities where signifi- contradictions, seeing their home- and a constant flow of visitors. As a land as “A riddle and a maze, a rim cant numbers of former kind of cultural backlash to Hawai'i and a charm, a struggle and a curse, as a commodity, postcolonial Hawai‘i residents live. both dream and slime, an ocean with Hawai'i features literary works and ancient contents and cyborgian 28 THE ALAN REVIEW Winter 2008 f27_35_TAR_Winter08 28 3/5/08, 4:36 PM futures all cast into one strange Hawai'i’s isolation and rela- regional poetic” (48). This is in Today, contemporary tively small size with semi-rural marked contrast to early efforts, Hilo, the second largest city after prior to World War II, to market the Hawai'i authors are carv- Honolulu, renders local happenings islands to wealthy tourists, portray- hugely important. This feature of ing Hawai'i as a colonial fair ing out alternative spaces particularity figures heavily in maiden to be rescued from the that embrace distance Yamanaka and Salisbury’s writing primitives or as a vast resource to and in the construction of adoles- be plundered (Wilson, 2000). Some from the mainland and cence depicted in their novels. researchers would argue that this Jamaica Kincaid (1998) writing trend simply continues in the localization of the arts. about her childhood home in tourist-marketing arena. For Core values in this Antigua said: example, University of Hawai'i In a small place, people cultivate small scholar, Julie Kaomea (2000, 335) postcolonial movement events. The small event is isolated, notes that: “Today, this familiar blown up, turned over and over, and trope of the superior Caucasian and include hybrid indigenous then absorbed into the everyday, so that at any moment it can and will roll the subservient native functions as cultures, multicultural and an essential selling point for off the inhabitants of the small places’ tongues. (52) Hawaii’s tourist industry.” I would polyethnic community, argue that young adult literature Similarly, literary theorist situated in Hawai'i and other and a local literary scene McCallum (1999) notes that: “The aboriginal settings offers a rich site image of the landscape as text, that affirms ethnic heri- for critical literacy and the examina- which both writes and is written tion of the balance of power. tage and culture (Wilson, upon by the people who occupy it, Today, contemporary Hawai'i implies a sense of the past of places authors are carving out alternative 2000). and cultures as radically textualized spaces that embrace distance from and intertextual (190).” As an the mainland and localization of island community, isolated from the the arts.