The following comment, left by someone using the name “a town without a newspaper,” struck me as particularly provocative.
Knowing that not everyone compulsively digs through the daily comments, I thought it deserved highlighting.
Let me know what you think.
Sep 14, 2011 at 10:00 am (Edit)
I once saw a presentation at the UHM for journalism majors. The adviser to the student newspaper Ka Leo explained that if a public official dodges a reporter, the reporter is to look up that official’s home residence address and that evening wait in the drive way to confront the official.
The whole room fell dead silent.
Finally, a young woman spoke out with trepidation, “Can we do that?”
The journalist got angry and started shouting at the students “You are reporters! That’s what reporters are supposed to do!”
I knew one of the student journalists, who was from the midwest but went to high school in Hawaii. She said that in the midwest, people are very nice and considerate in interpersonal matters. They are careful not to say anything that will hurt someone’s feelings. But in practical matters like business and politics, people in the midwest are very firmly but politely assertive and very open — and very hard working. I think that she had a real problem with the absence in Hawaii of that open and assertive side of life, but also with a kind of laid-back negligence and sloppiness.
There is a small-town lifestyle in Hawaii like in the midwestern US, but the geographic isolation amplifies the considerateness of the people, but also their timidity and complacency. They want to become journalists so they can report on restaurants and info tech and baby showers and all the creature comforts that comprise daily life within a very narrow horizon. In the 21st century, this is a path to doom.
The presentation that followed was from a successful journalist, a young guy from the Philippines whose father was a newspaper publisher. (He spoke perfect American English.) This reporter had moved to California during his college years and went to a community college with a decent student newspaper. He bought a Dodge Dart and lived in it, and survived on a diet of crackers and water. He constantly published and built up a big portfolio and got a job as a journalist when he graduated. You don’t need to go to Harvard, he said, but you need to constantly publish.
Again the room was dead silent.
The whole idea of moving to another country and living in an old car and on a diet of crackers and doing nothing but working was totally alien to the UH journalism majors. They probably mostly lived with their families and spent their weekends shopping or at the beach or working at a job (largely so they could go shopping).
The thing is, this guy was from a laid-back tropical island culture, and this guy had some major balls on him. There are people like that in all small-towns, people like Barack Obama, who end up at elite universities and in Hollywood and on Wall Street, etc.
Those kind of people deep down still remain attached emotionally to where they come from, and they keep the values of the culture they were raised in close to their hearts. That’s especially true of people from the midwest, from what I’ve seen.
But that’s not true of Hawaii. Over-achievers from Hawaii do not identify with Hawaii. They grow up alienated from the local culture and it mystifies them. They may visit Hawaii on occasion, but they avoid the people.
If there is a side of life involving openness and assertiveness and hard work and aspiration that is freakishly missing in Hawaii even for someone from rural Ohio who went to public high school in Hawaii, just imagine what Obama thinks of Hawaii.
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The cultural style to be nice and not challenge has brought us where we are today.
P.S. The email is correct.
Ian, the Honolulu City council approved the atrocious Marriott Hotel Courtyard September 16, and you did not say a word. You live close by.
Hawaii Reserves/Marriott Hotel will forever destroy Koolau. Where is the outrage? Oh, I forget. We have to be nice and forgivinig to all.
Maybe we can nicely boycott the Polynesian Cultural Center as some are suggesting.
We can nicely cross Mitt Romney off the list.
Comment was dishearteningly correct. Cultural alienation on such a small island like Oahu is one of the reasons that well-educated young people move elsewhere to live a better life. Brain drain from Hawaii continues, and everyone loses.
About 7 years ago I published an essay entitled “Local Pride — How It Is Different in Hawaii From Elsewhere; How Local People Get to be American Idols; The Role of the Aloha Spirit in Local Pride” at
http://tinyurl.com/6vtbn
Here’s the summary:
Throughout America, the residents of any town or state take pride in the accomplishments of local people. Whenever individuals or groups achieve nationwide fame for something positive, they become local celebrities. But in Hawai’i the intensity of local pride is far stronger than elsewhere, and the heroes are more lavishly celebrated. Local pride in Hawai’i is a glue that helps the local people of a group of remote Pacific islands preserve local values in the face of huge numbers of temporary guests (tourists and military personnel). Local pride is also a defiant assertion of worthiness by ethnic Hawaiians and Asian immigrant descendants overcoming a history of loss, poverty, and low status. Local people who achieved nationwide fame illustrate the reasons that elevate local people to the status of “American idol”: Jasmine Trias, Michelle Wie, General Shinseki, General Taguba, Duke Kahanamoku, Braddah Iz (Israel Kamakawiwo’ole), Kamehameha. The idolizing of Hawaiian culture as the core of Hawai’i’s culture is entirely appropriate. It is a powerful source of local pride for everyone. But making an idol out of a racial group is very different from making an idol out of an individual or a set of cultural values. Stereotyping or racial profiling of one group can lead to evil consequences for all groups, even when it is done with a positive intention. The Aloha Spirit is higher and greater than any ethnic group. It is a localized aspect of God, or the Cosmic Spirit. The Aloha Spirit should be recognized as Hawai’i’s true, permanent “American Idol” — our greatest source of local pride.
Ken, you are so full of it. I haven’t seen anyone bowing down to me or any other Hawaiian to worship us. On the other hand, I have seen people like you with that old missionary mindset that kick us when we are down and smile because it makes you feel superior.
From Judy Rohrer’s book, “Haoles in Hawai‘i”: Since the Rice v. Cayetano decision in 2000, there has been a growing pernicious discourse of haole victimization based in U.S. civil rights law (this is the anti-affirmative action strategy imported from the continent). We are lead to believe that Hawaiians are turning Hawai’i into a place rife with racial strife, discrimination, and segregation. In this latest discursive twist, Hawaiian programs and entitlements are said to go against the “aloha spirit” because they are “divisive” and unfair to non-Hawaiians.
It is incredible how this argument is made as it uses Kanaka Maoli cultural values and practices against Kanaka Maoli entitlements, by claiming Hawaiianess for non-Hawaiians (this is native cultural appropriation, haole-style). Scholars, including J. K?haulani Kauanui and Patrick Wolfe, remind us that the definitive feature of settler colonialism is the imperative that native peoples disappear so that non-natives can claim their land, their culture, their very indigeneity (hence the romanticized myth of the “vanishing Indian” on the continent along with the growth of the New Age industry).
Haoles fulfill this imperative every time we claim we are Hawaiian or know more about Hawaiian culture than Hawaiians (e.g explaining the “aloha spirit” to Hawaiians; see work by Lisa Kahaleole Hall and Rona Tamiko Halualani). This leaves us free from having to undertake any kind of reckoning with the history of colonialism that has privileged us and disadvantaged non-haoles, particularly Hawaiians, for centuries.
Typical UH-Manoa third-world Ethnic Studies BS thinking. You are going out of your way to feel insulted. You are taking offense where no offense is intended.
Coming from the state capital of Florida, where more than a dozen newspapers and half-dozen broadcast outlets made for a competitive game of chasing Jeb Bush and other ballsy politicos, you can bet I hit culture shock big time my first year of covering Hawaii state, and later county, government. As one official told me, “You haoles are so bold.” Midwesterners are polite, yes. East Coasters? Not so much.
This is all fascinating stuff and nice to hear so many voices speaking up.
I was struck when moving here in the mid 90’s at how Haoles would whine about how they were discriminated against. To me, it was clear that this state is run by a coalition of elite white people, Japanese-Americans, and a scattering of successful people of other ethnicities. Tell me I’m wrong.
If you are saying how this state is run justifies racial and cultural discrimination, then, yes, you are very wrong.
If that is not what you are saying, then please clarify. Thank you.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean. I think I’m very clear here.
I would add that institutions such as the Bishop Estate, the Mormon church, etc. are very powerful here, often in covert ways.
That response of yours misses the mark entirely. Read the plain English. It’s a descriptive remark not one of advocacy.
the plain English: “how Haoles would whine about how they were discriminated against”
that’s just descriptive? nice try.
I remember reading a good piece about 12 years ago about how Hawaii public affairs, public discourse and politics still suffer from the Plantation Mentality (don’t be the nail sticking up that gets pounded down). A case in point is that beginning in 1988 or so, Charles Memminger would annually run stories about the Bishop Estate Trustees excessive compensation. Nothing was done about it until the controversy began in 1996-97. Everybody knew about it, talked about, but nothing was done because they were the Lunas.
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I have only lived in Hawaii about 40 years. I was in a discussion with a part-Hawaiian co-worker lately about a Hawaii-Mainland comparison in a different area. He observed that many people who have moved to Hawaii because they are attracted to lovely and often unique aspects of Hawaii and island life and then spend their time complaining (and trying to change) things that make Hawaii different. “Localism” and “local style” have some less than attractive aspects but as we become more and more homogenized, or “californicated” as some say, the local style becomes more and more enticing, at least too me. We have some things in common with other small, isolated, culturally and ethnically unique places across the country and the world. Every such town fosters some people who can not stand it and leave as quickly as possible and others who can not stand to travel even a few miles to the next biggest place. Long ago Bob Krauss wrote a pretty good book about island life styles, and for sure one of the aspects is the need to be more courteous (openly, anyway) and deferential to others. The history of departed newcomers is full of people who could not get that. It is neither good nor bad, but there it is. How can anyone be surprised about it? As a male caucasian I find a sort of perverse pleasure in living in a place where me and my kind are not in the majority and not in charge. I hate seeing the transition in so many areas to more homogenized, less unique place in almost every aspect of public and private life.
Thanks for the post, Ian. This comment raises a lot of issues, small town openness and assertiveness being just two of them.
Having grown up, and recently returned from, a visit in Ohio, I don’t find island-style insulation and complacency all that much different than the mainland pastoral brand. What is a small country hamlet if not an island in a sea of green prairie? To address the ‘upward mobility’ concerns in the comment, I think it becomes more of an issue between town vs. country, instead of Hawaii vs. the Midwest, or mainland. Exposure to, and learning from, new ideas happens when people a bunch of people are all crammed in to a few blocks, like in New York or as we can even see here in Honolulu. Personally, my move to Oahu was lured by the greater amount of cultural diversity in the islands than I had seen in my hometown. Just like cruising the web, we largely have the ability to choose our interests and exposure to ideas.
The islander’s ability to assert (and I’ll add, discern –a necessary trait for a journalist) is questioned in the comment. While a small-town environment exudes a degree of homogeneity, we’re not all walking around with polarized blinders on eyes, brains numb from eating too much shave ice. Nor are residents of the rural mainland. I recently read (@ http://www.onthemedia.org) about reporter in rural Kentucky who busted a crooked sheriff. Erin Brockovich is another example. Of our local journalists, there are some (albeit not enough) muckrakers – both local and transplants. I completely agree that too many journ school students, “want to become journalists so they can report on restaurants and info tech and baby showers and all the creature comforts that comprise daily life within a very narrow horizon,” though I think that’s a national trend. Since Hawaii is a tourist destination, we tend to see a lot of information about creature comforts like restaurants and wedding planning. That’s because it’s the kind of media that can be supported by advertisers and local businesses – but it’s by no means the end-all, nor is it the entirety of the journalist’s profession.
Two separate lines in the comments here: the quality of local reporting and the role of local life. Maybe the latter is cause and the former is effect, or not. In any case, this city does not have many reporters who are like heat-seeking missiles who will inexorably go after a story. Carroll Cox comes to mind .
The cause may not be local style but I blame newspapers who don’t want to offend their advertisers or TV which seems to rely a lot on public service announcements. The corporate message from above is ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’.
There are so many low hanging, ripe topics for good reporting in this town and things won’t get better until the press sinks their teeth into them.
I couldn’t get past the “laid back sloppiness and negligence” and ‘timidity and complacency” characterization of locals.
We have many examples of local people creating world class products and services. They did not get there by being sloppy, negligent, timid or complacent.
And there is a local way of getting along that is less confrontational and more trusting than many Mainland communities. Thank goodness!
And that takes nothing away from the newby who shows up and shakes things up. They make us examine why things are the way they are and if we could do better. I am smiling because I have played both roles.
Could we do better? Always! But that is not because local people are sloppy, negligent, timid or complacent. There is a history in Hawaii of having overcome oppressive control and creating a much more progressive community which should be an inspiration to all of us.
Couldn’t have said it better, and agree 100%.
“There is a history in Hawaii of having overcome oppressive control and creating a much more progressive community which should be an inspiration to all of us.”
Yes and no. The one’s who lead liberation movements in Hawaii are usually (not always) from outside of Hawaii. The locals tend to follow along (or, just as likely, not do anything). Some of these so-called local “leaders”, not all of them, later cash in when they come into power.
I agree the “plantation” mentality is still a part of locals, which has a lot to do with the Asian part of us. A good example is poor service at a restaurant or a meal that is not up to par. My friend’s wife, who was born and raised in Korea, will complain to the management, especially if it is a Korean restaurant, which my friend finds embarrassing. His wife’s reasoning is the management should be told so they can fix the problem and improve the business, which makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, most locals will just leave and not come back.
You can see the difference in schools, too. Schools attended by more haole kids will usually attract better teachers, facilities and up-to-date equipment. Why? Because their parents will lobby, fund-raise, attend meetings, solicit or do whatever it takes to better their children’s learning environment. You don’t see as much pro-active parent participation in other schools.
When I look around at all the young kids I wonder what they are going to do for their careers. The Hawaii economy offers limited options and these kids are disadvantaged if they relocate to the continent by some of the same characteristics that we value locally.
As a transplant from California since 1996, I have a love/hate relationship with the laid back culture here. Generally I think the good cancels out the bad, but what I want to respond to specifically is this passage:
I have run into just this kind of thing recently. Prices for everything have been going up up up at such an alarming rate over the last several years, that we feel like we’re being nickled and dimed to death. As soon as we start to get ahead, here comes another round of price increases like clockwork. Family and friends on the mainland go into heart failure when I tell them how much it costs to feed a small family of three some semblance of a healthy diet here.
While on the phone last week with Oceanic Cable’s retention department, trying to negotiate a lower bill before I drop them for good in favor of free internet TV, I explained my reasons for needing to reduce my monthly expenses. The response I received from the young operator was quite telling: “I have never had a cable bill of my own to pay, but I can understand how you feel.”
Well no, you can’t. While I appreciate the empty sentiment, you think the slave wages most companies pay in Hawaii are golden because you don’t have any bills to pay. That’s how you got the job.
That little encounter saved me exactly $4.95/mo, which barely buys a loaf of bread anymore. But of course she probably never bought her own bread before either.
There’s a lot of assumption in the original comment. Many of the subsequent ones are so critical and complaining that I wonder why the commenters continue to live here?
These comments are critical, but I do not think that anyone is really complaining.
These are not complaints.
The tone of the comments is best represented by the comment “What are our kids going to do after they are raised in this society and socialized into these kind of attitudes and values?….”
The comments generally seem to me to express anguish and dismay, not complaining or condescension.
The old “if you don’t like it leave”? How boring.