The response, or “Keep Town Town,” might be read with a local accent, but it’s hardly da kine. While the local bumpersticker that reads “Keep the Country Country” is in standard English, its sentiment is Pidgin.

Baseball has a working class history in Hawai`i, especially among AJA, or Americans of Japanese ancestry soccer is played in a suburban middle class present untethered to plantation or war histories. Kāne`ohe is the suburbs Kahalu`u is still country.

If I turn right on Kahekili Highway, in the direction of Kāne`ohe Town and highways to Honolulu, toward my daughter’s soccer practices, I drive into a world of local people who, for the most part, do not speak Pidgin to each other. (The language is actually Hawaiian Creole English or HCE, but people in Hawai`i call it Pidgin.) Many dads come from work in the bright green shirts of construction and road-workers the moms, who speak less Pidgin, still live in its surround. I also turn toward a community of coaches and parents who, for the most part, speak Pidgin English. When I turn left on Kahekili Highway near my house on the windward side of O`ahu, I turn toward my son’s baseball practice and many of his games in Kahalu`u.

Hawaiian pidgin