Flipping Da Script

Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo

As a small kid in the 1970s and ’80s, Lee Tonouchi grew up listening to his father and grandparents talk Pidgin. But soon enough, teachers started correcting his grammar and pushing him to use proper English. 

One teacher even told him he wrote like how he talked. That made him feel good! But turns out it wasn’t a compliment.

“I always thought was weird, right?” he says. “Cuz in writing always get all these kinds of words dat we no can use, yeah? And yet I wen’ hear ’em. I would go outside or I would go home and I would hear words like bumbai, hammajang, da kine. But how come I cannot use ’em in writing? So I always felt dat writing, oh dat’s for fake.”

At home he was praised, scolded, teased and entertained by grandparents fluent in Pidgin. It was the language he was most comfortable expressing himself in. That feeling never went away, and he would go on to dedicate his life to championing Pidgin and underrepresented local voices. He adopted the moniker Da Pidgin Guerrilla to capture his outsider status. 

Maybe, he says, things would have been different if his mother hadn’t died in an auto-bus collision when he was only 2. He was with her in the car, but survived.

“I tink dat wen’ change da whole trajectory of my life, yeah?” he says. “Dat’s why my Kaimukī grandparents had fo’ raise me planny an’ das why my Maui grandma had for come help take care of me. Pretty much I was raised by all da Pidgin talkers, yeah? And my mom was one English teacher so I no know how her view was on Pidgin.”

His father raised him, too, but worked long hours tracking satellites at Kaʻena Point.

In 2005, he got to teach his dream course — a Pidgin literature class at Hawai‘i Pacific University. It was the first of its kind. Even better, he got his good friend Kent Sakoda, who co-authored Pidgin Grammar: An Introduction to the Creole Language of Hawai‘i, to teach a Pidgin linguistics course at the school. That landed him on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. 

You can’t get more legit than The Wall Street Journal. Or so he thought.

“I even had friends who knew I wen’ write in Pidgin, but even when I wen’ give ’em da article … still dey wen tink was all for fake, brah. That’s my friends an’ dey nevah wen believe. Like why would da Wall Street Journal care about Pidgin? And how can we have one whole college course be Pidgin?”

Nevertheless, he persisted.

In 2013, his poetry collection Significant Moments In Da Life Of Oriental Faddah and Son won the Association of Asian Studies’ Poetry/Prose Book Award. In 2023, the American Association for Applied Linguists presented him with the Distinguished Public Service Award for raising public awareness of language-related issues and promoting linguistic social justice.

And earlier this year, he was named the 2026-29 state poet laureate. He’s the third person to receive the honor, following slam poet Kealoha and author Brandy Nālani McDougall, and the first to have graduated from a public school (‘Aiea High School, class of 1990). 

If that wasn’t enough, Punahou School picked him to be its 2026 writer-in-residence. For six days in February, he went around the campus telling students, according to Punahou’s website, “Pidgin stay its own language. Pidgin get its own grammar. Pidgin get its own rules. Pidgin no stay broken English.”

The first time Tonouchi got an inkling he could be a writer was when he was an undergrad at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He took an introduction to poetry class from Rob Wilson. 

“He wasn’t from ova here but he was using a textbook called The Best of Bamboo Ridge,” Tonouchi recalls. “He was also using Shakespeare and Faulkner but he thought it was important for incorporate local literature in part of his curriculum. So I was very blessed because a lot of my friends went all through college and never get no local literature whatsoever.” 

Wilson introduced him to the poem Tutu on the Curb by Eric Chock. 

“It was like, wow dis poem is deep, brah,” Tonouchi says. “On the literal level it’s about one old tūtū wearing a mu‘umu‘u standing on one corner, but then on one deeper level the poem was about the fading away of local culture, so tūtū becomes one metaphor.

“And it’s one Pidgin poem, eh? I neva know, right? Get guys writing in Pidgin! And den it hit, yeah? Ho, we stay studying ‘em in college, yeah? That mean gotta be smart, yeah, for study Pidgin?”

Inspired, Tonouchi signed up for a creative writing class. 

“Most naturally, I going take from Rob Wilson, right? Dat’s the guy, right, dat wen introduce me to local literature and Pidgin. So I wen’ try write some poems … what did I learn? I tink I wen learn dat I have one ear for listening and capturing voices.” 

Next, he took a playwriting class from Dennis Carroll, who encouraged him to enter his script in Kumu Kahua Theatre’s playwriting contest. 

“Up to that point I didn’t even know had one thing such as Kumu Kahua Theatre, yeah?” he says. And hooo! My play won. Was like hooooo! Da first ting I ever wrote and I won someting. And it came at one pivotal point cuz I was going graduate with my bachelor’s in English and I gotta figure out what I going do now, if I going work or go school. 

“So I said maybe I should try go UH, try get my master’s in English with emphasis on creative writing. But I gotta get into the creative writing program. Cuz my portfolio was very small, yeah? Neva have a lot of good stuff. But I tink on the strength that I actually won someting, I got into the creative writing program.”

Chock happened to be a visiting professor at the time, but Tonouchi didn’t have enough prerequisites to get into his class. So he sought out his literary hero in person. 

“I said, ‘Oh, your poem wen’ change my life. I like take from you.’ He said, ‘How’s about you go give me one writing sample?’ So I wen’ give him my writing sample. And he said no, cannot be in his class.

“But I wanted to take from him so bad, yeah? Cuz he’s the visiting professor, he’s only going be there little while. So I was like, ‘Hooo, wow, I go take your class credit no credit, den. Credit no credit.’ And finally he said OK, right? Because I was being so naggy.”

Nowadays, Tonouchi is the sought-after instructor. He no longer teaches college courses like the one at HPU, but when he leads playwriting workshops at Kumu Kahua — which are free but limited to a handful of people — they fill up fast and can be competitive. 

In 2023, his workshop took place virtually. Kumu Kahua Theatre officials offered to pay box office manager Sara Ward to oversee the video teleconferencing platform. In a move that mirrored Tonouchi’s “credit no credit” gambit, Ward said she’d do it for free if she could participate in the class. That’s how much she wanted in. 

Ward was working on a piece about the pandemic, about how she and her friends stayed in touch via chat and dealt with social distancing.  

“It was about COVID and very depressing but had this relationship between da mom and daughter, dey had like dis dynamic dat felt very real,” Tonouchi recalls. “And turns out was kind of real, was based on Sara’s relationship with her daughter, yeah? I was like, ‘You should write one play about da relationship about da mom being controlling about who da daughter dates.’”

Ward says, “I definitely went into that class thinking I was going to write a drama and never having a concept at all that I could write something funny.”

“Sara insisted, ‘But I can’t write funny,’” Tonouchi recalls. “But it’s already funny there, this little bit she showed me. I can see it. And so she tried. And ended up was really funny.”

Her piece eventually became Smother and Kumu Kahua Theatre chose to include it in its 55th season in 2025. What’s more, she has another comedy, Grumpy Old Futz, coming to Kumu Kahua in 2027.

As for what’s next for Tonouchi, he says his children’s book, Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos, will be adapted into a musical next year. He’s also working on an anthology of Okinawan American writing. It will expand on Chiburu: Anthology of Hawai‘i Okinawan Literature to include Okinawan writers from the continent. 

“When I did da Chiburu collection … I was trying for find oddah like-minded Okinawan writers. Because, you know, I’m a reader, too. I like for read. So, I notice lot of local writers get Okinawan last names, yeah? I knew them so I knew they was part Okinawan. But they wasn’t writing anything Okinawan so I was like, ‘How’s about you write for me?’”

Looking back, he says he always challenged himself to try new things. Poems, screenwriting, short stories, anthologies — even interviews and food reviews — he tried them all. 

“I still learning, right? So I like try different genres,” he says. 

That’s why he jumped at the chance to adapt Alden M. Hayashi’s novel, Two Nails, One Love, for the stage; he’d never done an adaptation before. Plus, his good friend and Kumu Kahua Theatre creative director Harry Wong III would be directing it. It ran at Kumu Kahua in January and February. 

He has limits, though. 

“Some people wen’ ask me for do Pidgin adaptation on Shakespeare,” he says. “Wasn’t interesting to me. I no like help Shakespeare, you know? Shakespeare, he already get planny love. I wanted for help Alden. I wanted for help Harry.”

To learn more about Tonouchi, follow him on Instagram (@pidginguerrilla). To request his participation at an event, visit hihumanities.org/hpl.