31 with covert prestige in contrast to English, which is associated with overt prestige in
Hawai‗i society. In many contexts, however, Hawai‗i Creole is the unmarked language.
1.4.2 Local comedy
One example of commentary on Local comedy illustrates that ethnic humor is a sensitive topic and can be interpreted in different ways. The writer,
Honolulu Advertiser
columnist Lee Cataluna, criticized ethnic humor and, in particular, Portuguese jokes. Her article
— titled
‘Portagee’ jokes born of cruelty—starts as follows:
I hate Portuguese jo kes. It‘s not because they‘re not funny—some of them make
me laugh. It‘s not because I don‘t have a sense of humor, because on a good day, with lots of snacks, I can sometimes approach delightful. It‘s not even because
I‘m almost pure-blooded Portuguese, though that certainly adds to my distaste. Cataluna, 2000
As seen from Cataluna‘s remarks, ethnic humor is a touchy subject in Local comedy. She makes reference to one of the most well known comedians, Frank DeLima, who tours
public schools as a motivational speaker:
Why does the Department of Education allow Frank DeLima to tour nearly every school in the state, inflicting his insults on children? Isn‘t it harmful for kids of
any racial background to be exposed to race-based, school-sanctioned humor? I
‘ve heard his routines and they sure make ―Portagees‖ sound dumb. DeLima‘s defense is that he‘s teaching kids the value of diversity and teaching them to laugh
at themselves. In reality, he‘s teaching kids to laugh while others insult them. How empowering. Cataluna, 2000
Six months after Cataluna‘s article, Sodetani 2001 responded to it with an article in the
Honolulu Weekly
that began: ―Watch your tongue. Ethnic jokes—the heart and soul of
32 local humor
—are now politically incorrect. ‗I hate Portuguese jokes,‘ groused
Honolulu Advertiser
columnist Lee Cataluna recently‖ Sodetani, 2001, p. 6. Sodetani went on to treat Cataluna‘s interpretation of ethnic humor as exceptional:
The columnist‘s stance felt out of sync with how most locals perceive ethnic jokes. Mostly, we love and laugh at them
—even though in recent years, like Spam or malasadas, it has become un-PC to ingest them without guilt, to admit they
resonate deep in our mixed-plate psyche like comfort food for the soul. Sodetani, 2001, p. 6
A s imilar debate over the issue of political correctness within the context of Hawai‗i is
found in Peetz 1998.
13
These radically different interpretations of ethnic humor attest the dialogic nature of creative discursive practice that is driven by centrifugal and
centripetal forces. The cultural anthropologist Blake 1996 conceptualizes humor in Hawai‗i as
interethnic because each ethnic group takes its turn to become the butt of a joke; he states that it is ―in-group local‖ p. 7 humor that creates ―a local culture‖ p. 7. He regards
violence and ethnic joking as two forms of conflict resolution, and the space separating these two forms is ―broad and mirthful‖ in the tradition of ethnic joking in Hawai‗i.
Quoting Frank DeLima‘s defensive utterance i.e., ―I do not make fun of the people or the cultures but of the stereotypes‖, Blake develops this point as follows:
13
Peetz 1998 is one of many local newspaper and magazine articles that were published in the past thirty years between 1981 and 2009 e.g., Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu Weekly,
Honolulu Magazine, etc.. These articles featured various comedians, and reviewing these articles provides
a glimpse of which comedians were and still are in the entertainment industry, which includes, but is not limited to: Augie T e.g., Mossman, 2000, James Grant Benton e.g., Sinnex, 1988, Booga-Booga e.g.,
Spence, 1982, Kent Bowman e.g., Markrich, 1987, Andy Bumatai e.g., Lipman, 1981, Ray Bumatai e.g., Harada, 1996, Mel Cabang e.g., Doyle, 1990, Kathy Collins e.g., Nitta, 2004, Frank DeLima e.g.,
Harada, 1985, Lippy Espinda Whatever happened, 1996, Bo Irvine e.g., Dixon-
Stong, 1992, Bu La‗ia e.g., Buckley, 1994, Lucky Luck Memminger, 2009, Sterling Mossman Memminger, 2009, Paul
Ogata e.g., Choi, 2004, Rap Reiplinger e.g., Katahara, 1991, Tremaine Tamayose e.g., Memminger, 1994.
33 All ethnic and racial jokes play on stereotypes, of course, but in Hawai‗i the
stereotypes seem almost epiphenomenal, that is detached from our knowledge of real groups and actual people. No one can reside long in Hawai‗i without having
colleagues, friends, indeed family connections in the different ethnic groups. In this context the ethnic stereotypes seem ridiculous. They seem to have a life of
their own in the jokelore. Each ethnic group is stereotyped with one or another of the human foibles and mind-body modalities which is then applicable to
anyone who so comports him or herself. Blake, 1996, p. 7
Blake gives two examples: first, an Asian-looking person who is a Punahou School graduate is referred to as Haole; second, the radio show host Larry Price who is
CaucasianPortuguese jokingly behaves like a ―local boy‖ p. 7 while making fun of his Caucasian co-host Michael W. Perry. Blake p
araphrases his claim as follows: ―the ‗Portagee‘ is in effect nowhere and yet everywhere The ‗Portagee‘ is a mirror image of
our own ethnic selves‖ p. 7. He also makes reference to multiracial individuals:
In effect, we in Hawai‗i buck the common-sense [of ethnic and racial differentiation] when we celebrate those among us whose ethnicity, contrary to
common-sense appearances and claims, is not clear. This cherished paradox is reflected in the widespread intermarriage and the total lack of stigma attached to
the ethnic or racial in-
betweens, the ―hapas‖ as they are called. Blake, 1996, p. 8
Blake acknowledges that ―[t]he real test of local jokelore is its ability to transform ‗Caucasian‘ into ‗dumb haole,‘ a process that strains the local funny bone to very near its
breaking point‖ p. 8. In short, Blake sets his argument apart from the political correctness argument and conceptualizes interethnic humorjoking as ―a popular grass-
roots method for including rather than excluding peoples of different racial and ethnic backgrounds‖ p. 8. Because interethnic humor could be interpreted as a method for
excluding peoples of different backgrounds, the question must be addressed of what groups are included through interethnic joking. Nevertheless, the act of including a
34 member in an in-group is inseparable from the act of excluding another from the in-group,
thereby creating an out-group. I have suggested that it is analytically richer to presume that categories have a life
of their own, and maintained that Local comedians make use, explicitly and implicitly, of these historically loaded categorial resources in their interactional business of affiliation
and disaffiliation management. These categories in use relate to creating in-groups and out-groups because some categories are stereotypically subcategories of Local and others
are those of non-Local.
1.4.3 Humor-ing the Local
