IN
THIS ISSUE (No.7) |
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| Charlene
"Charlie" Sato |
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Speakers
of pidgin and creole languages have lost one of their strongest
supporters, Charlie Sato, who died on 28 January 1996 at the age
of 44 after a 10-month battle with cancer. Charlie taught pidgin
and creole studies, sociolinguistics and other linguistics subjects
at the University of Hawai‘i for 14 years and was Chair of
the PhD program in Second Language Acquisition. She was editor of
the Carrier Pidgin newsletter from 1989-93 and on the Executive
Committee of the Society of Pidgin and Creole Linguistics since
its inception in 1989. Charlie
was a tireless fighter for social justice and the rights of the
underprivileged – especially speakers of Hawai‘i Creole
English (HCE), who she saw were being dis-advantaged in education
and employment. In the late 1980s Charlie served as an expert witness
for two HCE speakers who filed a lawsuit against their employer
for accent discrimination. She also led the attack on the Hawai‘i
State Board of Education when it attempted to ban the use of HCE
in the classroom. In both cases, Charlie’s frequent appearances
in the media and eloquent defence of HCE helped to increase community
awareness about linguistic issues and galvanize support for the
language as an important part of Hawai‘i’s identity.
She was also instrumental in establishing the Hawai‘i Coordinating
Council on Language Policy and Planning, which has since proposed
a very progressive state policy for education. During
her brief time in Australia in 1993-4, Charlie took an active interest
in Australian creoles and Aboriginal English and the rights of their
speakers. At the Australian Linguistic Institute in 1994 she was
coorganizer of a well attended workshop on pidgins, creoles and
non-standard varieties in education. Charlie
was an inspiration to her students and her colleagues. And no one
who has met her can forget her ability to bring out the best in
people, her sense of humour, her strong commitment, her contagious
laugh and her fun-loving outlook on life.
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