Free House of Many Gods by Kiana Davenport Page B

her in the birthing. Some days she lay back planning her child’s future while Ana
lomi’
ed her stomach with kukui oil.
    “She’s going to be educated. A prideful woman. Like you.”
    “Like me?”
    “Yes. I been thinking about you plenty, Ana. Fate cannot shape itself to you. You don’t sit still. You’re going to
choose
your fate, be something in the world. You’re going to finish high school.”
    Rosie glanced at their uncles in the next room. “Never used their GI Bills. Can you believe? Could have got high-school diplomas, gone to trade school, university. Even I once dreamed of college, now too late for me. You got to do that, Ana. We got to break the pattern in this family.”
    Long before her pregnancy, Rosie had begun to carry herself with extra care, giving her Polynesian beauty and massive size a certain dignity. Since Ava’s death, she had even begun to speak differently, seeming wiser and sure. Folks said her mother’s death had birthed her. She was slowly becoming the link between the generations, the one the family turned to for advice.
    Now she patted her stomach. “Put your hand here, on my child’s beating heart.”
    Ana gently laid her hand there.
    “Now. Swear you’re going get a higher education. You’re going make this family proud.”
    She swore, and then she whispered, “I already know what I want to be. But I don’t want to say it.”
    “Then swear on my child you going to accomplish it.”
    Ana snatched her hand back. “Cannot … not yet.”
    She was curious and smart, but seldom volunteered in class, afraid she would stand out, “make ass” of herself as an achiever. And so for a while she ditched classes, got into fistfights and ran on the fringes of a girl gang. It was a matter of pride, of upholding Nanakuli’s toughness, its “country” reputation. Teachers evaluated Ana as bright, but “noncompliant,” one step from becoming delinquent. She looked at her report card. C’s, all C’s. She looked at Rosie’s stomach, remembering her promise.
    “I swear, by the time that baby’s born, I’m going to make upper third of my class.”
    Perhaps because someone believed in her she began to push herself. With unswerving focus, she rose to the upper third of her class and then pushed on, aiming for Honor Roll. And she began to see how language could give her access to higher learning. One night she made an announcement.
    “Today my teacher said we got to learn ‘proper’ English, so we can study things like math and science. Ho, man! Kids got plenty angry. Everybody yelling. ‘How we going talk to parents widdout Pidgin? Pidgin same as English.’ ”
    She played with her fork, slightly embarrassed. “I raised my hand and said Pidgin is
not
the same as English. It’s not an inferior kind of English. It’s a
different
language than English. Like French, or Spanish. Like Hawaiian Mother Tongue. My teacher said that was a good point. So now I have to write a paper on it.”
    The family sat quiet, not understanding.
    “So now … she punishing you?” Ben asked.
    “No, Uncle. It’s sort of an honor, and I get extra credit for the paper. She wants me to write about how it’s important that we speak all three languages. Hawaiian, Pidgin, English, so we can keep up with the rest of the world. We going to be what she calls … trilingual.”
    A cousin argued. “But, we already know da kine … English.”
    Ana shook her head. “We only know it as slang. When we’re happy, or sad, or have to say something important, we always say it in Pidgin.”
    “Dat’s right,” Ben said. “…  ’cause Pidgin real! It what we feel
pu‘uwai
, from da heart.”
    Ana sighed. “Yes, but could anyone understand physics if Einstein had talked Pidgin? ‘Da kine = mc squared.’ My teacher said that to studychemistry, math, even world literature, we have to learn ‘proper’ English. We have to express ourselves that way.”
    Two cousins pushed back from the table.