Different languages, parallel universes

A bit about the nature of code switching

Shoots everyone, I have four posts already started that were meant to come before this one. I had no idea why I was compelled to write what I wrote last week; not do I know why I once again interrupt what I thought was a linear succession of thoughts to bring you this weekʻs post. Thank you for being willing to zig and zag with this overactive brain.

Last week I mused on how when I speak in different languages my energy and body language change, to the point that I feel myself, and others perceive me, as a different person. Then in a single-sentence aside, I got up on my virtual soapbox. Without elaborating, I suggested my negative assessment of the American businessman who arrives in Brazil, learns little of the language, socializes entirely in the expatriate community, and yet expects the business community to accommodate him on those terms- would be an instructive parable for newcomers to Hawaiʻi.

Even though I only alluded to the topic, it triggered in me a judgmental, pointed energy that lingered¹. For most of this past week, I saw every interaction through that lens. I made assessments of people through that lens (mostly negative ones). The chatter in my head created new distinctions through that lens (some of them, I hope, will turn out to be helpful ones).

Iʻd like to share some of those ideas and see if you also find them helpful. Iʻd like to share also that it does not feel good when I fall into my pattern of judgment, of habitually making negative assessments. As an observer of myself, one of my challenges is to catch myself quickly when I do this, when I am in this perverse mode of making myself feel superior or special by judging others, when what really makes me feel good is not to be special, but to feel connected.

I want to write again today about the challenges of Belonging, of feeling connected - which I think is this yearʻs theme. So back to the topic of language.

Do you know the concept of “code switching”?

In pure linguistics theory, it would be as simple as me speaking in English with my colleagues during a business meeting in the office in São Paulo, and then switching to Portuguese as we discussed my dating life over a cafezinho². Same location, same people, different contexts, different languages. The switch makes sense.

The way I mostly use the term these days is more nuanced. Going back to the expatriate executive of last week’s post, there is a structural relic of colonialism embedded in the external world and internally in many of us, that views White American English as the gold standard against which all other linguistic forms of expression are to be measured. Those whose first or most natural or spoken at home language is Black English, Rez, Hawaiian Pidgin, even Brazilians speaking Portuguese when working in a office of an American Bank in Brazil - are expected to code-switch to be given high grades in school or be taken seriously at work.

The problem with this, as I explained in last week’s post, is we literally become different people as we speak different languages with not just linguistic fluency but cultural fluency. To demean or prohibit the speaking of a language is to demean or erase those who express their identity by speaking it. And conversely, when we appropriate language and cultural practice, we are equally guilty of displaying our dominant language/culture/color privilege by insisting it is our right to belong without invitation or effort.

Code-switching in this sense is broader even than the use of language. We signal our belonging to a group, our understanding of group norms, with a combination of language, clothing, mannerisms, behaviors. I can move pretty fluidly now in contexts here in Hawaiʻi today that I could not have ten or twenty years ago. But my minimal competence at reverse code-switching took effort to achieve - being humble, devoted to learning, open to being corrected, and above all believing that it was and is incumbent upon me to meet People of Place on their terms, not mine.

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As the Universe had it programmed, I had scheduled lunch with a friend for this week. My friend is special to me for many reasons; among them, we are good thought partners and co-creators. In 2020 the two of us invited three more people into a conversation on the urgent topic of how to integrate the huge influx of newcomers to Hawaiʻi. We had positive goals: to see the potential in this influx as a resource as well as a threat, and to figure out how to most expeditiously educate newcomers so they would not be like the entitled or simply oblivious American executive in Brazil I described last week.

We chose the members of this conversation group from among our friends for their interest, insight, and integrity. In hindsight, I would add that each of the five of us was experienced in facilitation, in dialogue, and in code-switching. That initial invitation resulted in almost two years of every-other-week virtual meetings. We peeled layer after layer of the proverbial onion. And what we really ended up doing was peeling layer after layer of our own individual onions, investigating in the loving and respectful gaze of our colleagues how the nuance and structural aspects of the local - Hawaiian - malihini dynamics played out in each of us. And between us. The conversations were transformative. But not easily distilled into a welcome wagon kit or a rulebook for newcomers.

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Some newcomers to Hawaiʻi make a choice to live in the expatriate community - choosing neighborhoods and activities that keep them interacting with mirror images of themselves - untransformed by Hawaiʻi, content to wear Tommy Bahama shirts and give orchid lei for birthdays. I also realize that for many newcomers to Hawaiʻi, living in the expatriate community is not a conscious choice. Or maybe I should say, they donʻt know that a parallel universe exists. Or they have an inkling it exists but not a clue as to the entry point. Or they know it exists but donʻt have a reason they should put effort into stepping into it. Or maybe they tried but the attempt was awkward and they got rudely shut down. Maybe they tried and the reaction or experience just felt too uncomfortable and so they end up withdrawing - or worse, lecturing locals on the meaning of aloha. Ouch.

This week I came to the conclusion that the main contribution I can make to this ongoing need to create pathways for respectful newcomers to offer contributions without displacing People of Place is to keep creating what I am calling (in my inner dialogue) Open Source Code. Language that exists in the space between that invites folks to meet in understanding rather than requiring anyone to code-switch.

For example, when I explain the difference between real property and ʻāīna³ on the fingers of my two hands, I am literally saying “on the one hand, on the other hand” to illuminate different backgrounds of understanding. When I apply my analogy of last weekʻs post to refer to people living in Hawaiʻi for whatever length of time without being transformed as “living in the expatriate community” it opens a different perspective and pathway than when I refer to people as malihini - strangers - newcomers and try to describe how to become kamaʻāina to a Place⁴.

I canʻt even imagine how many hours I have spent thinking about, talking about this journey of Belonging since those rich conversations of 2020. I maybe have better questions five years later - but I am not sure I have better answers. I just know that getting better at this and helping others get better at this continues to be a calling for me.

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

1. Energy that in a constructive outlet informed the deliberately provocative real estate blog posts I wrote four years ago in the Is the Welcome Mat Out for Newcomers to Hawaiʻi series.

2. That would be this story. The italicized conversations were actually in Portuguese, not English.

3. More on that in this post about Place.

4. I feel like I have not fully elaborated on that, but allude to it in this post about Wind.