Bradajo Looks Ennsai

By Alyssa S. Navares

He looked inside and now tells others through his books to Chaloookyu Eensai, too.

Kaua'i-born poet Jozuf (Joseph) Hadley, also known as Bradajo, uses pidgin as a medium of self-discovery in order to encourage island locals to do the same.

"People are always taught to look at what's outside or at the form of things,"  said Bradajo, who spent much of his childhood days contemplating for hours in the jungle behind his house.  "We should present our inside selves to others and focus on the now you."�

As the first pidgin poet and artist, Bradajo published his 1972 edition of Chaloookyu Eensai (Try Look You Inside). The palm-sized book addresses the issue of understanding oneself through a compilation of personal experiences while growing up on the Garden Isle.

Bradajo looked deep into the inner core of himself for many years strolling through the plantation jungle, playing the ukulele, but spending a few days in Waimea Canyon proved to be most inspiring for him.

"I hiked up a waterfall near Alaka'i Swamp to find the source of the water and came to a black pool," he said. "That was da beginning when my poetry shifted to pidgin."

"Da Beegeeneen"� takes the reader on a spiritual journey, in which Bradajo uses the pidgin colloquialism to convey his message in a more free-form style.

Changing his writing to pidgin, a spoken language common in the nineteenth-century among plantation workers, remains a mystery to Bradajo. He does not recall learning pidgin but rather, absorbing the language differently than he did English. He attributes nature to his pidgin-speaking ways.

"I just can't explain it,"� he said.  "I've always felt like a fish out of water. So, nature was my way of communicating."

Bradajo presents his many Hawaiian pidgin haiku poems as calligraphic puzzles that he hopes the reader will use to figure out the meaning. CD recordings of Bradajo reciting his poems help to piece those puzzles together.

Ink-pen calligraphy, which he admits this method is also a mystery, stains each page of his four books with onomatopoeic pidgin. These books include Chaloookyu Eensai, Foreeel (for Real), Avebade Bade (Everybody's Body) and Da Bradajo Yellow Tablet.

Inspired by the summer 2006 film on global warming called "An Inconvenient Truth,"� his most recent Da Bradajo Yellow Tablet addresses more contemporary issues when compared to his other books.

"I struggled with the information for months," Bradajo said. "This movie made things clear for me because I was so overwhelmed by the truth."

His pidgin writings launched a craze among local artists, who used pidgin to express themselves in a variety of ways. Soon theatrical performances, books, commentary and comedy found their way into people's lives as a constant reminder of an often-overlooked language.

Pidgin also found its way in classrooms around the state.

Kapiolani Community College professor Lee Tonouchi teaches pidgin literature as one of few professors formalizing the language in schools. In Fall 2006, he will teach a Hip Hop Hawaii course and use local magazine “Hip Hop Hawai‘i� as a textbook supplement.

"For dat class, one of da tings we going be examining is da current state of Pidgin," Tonouchi said.  "We going try look ws going on wit da intersection of Pidgin and Hip-Hop speak among da young Pidgin talkers today."

For many years, people looked down upon pidgin-speaking, especially in classes. Some teachers even refused to let their students go to the bathroom until they asked in standard English.

"These scholars are showing that pidgin is a valid form of expression,"� Bradajo said. "Pidgin denoting a lack of intelligence is a dominant view in Hawai'i. People shouldn't heal others wounds by not speaking it "just be you."