Ray Tsuchiyama, award-winning Maui News blogger, offered up an insightful assessment of the Ige victory (“Candidate David Ige and Changing Demographics“).
Ige was in the first graduating class at Pearl City High School back in the 1970s, and his experience growing up in the new suburbs of west Oahu have led him to be “more at home in Lihue or Wailuku or Hilo with working-class folks and union members than in Kahala.”
Tsuchiyama writes:
He (Ige) describes his childhood as looking eastward at the older Honolulu urban center, the tall downtown buildings and Diamond Head – referred to as “town”, different from his western suburbs, connected by the H-1 freeway (built in the early 1960s that divided and isolated neighborhoods and caused the downfall of older business districts, like Kaimuki).
If Ige becomes elected Governor, he represents the new State demographics, a graduate not from the iconic pre-World War II Honolulu high schools that produced many post-World War II political leaders like McKinley (Daniel Inouye, Hiram Fong, George Ariyoshi) or Farrington (Ben Cayetano) or English-Standard Roosevelt (Thomas Gill).
This brief column is definitely worthwhile reading.
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Sorry, Ian, but this is interesting only for its stunning conventionality and stereotyping: Japanese are humble; Haole aren’t; Oahu people between Koko Head & Red Hill are pushy; everybody else in the state isn’t; inarticulateness is a virtue which local people possess in abundance while tantaran pushiness defines Haole. Locals have been in ascendance for 60 years. You don’t think there are some in Kahala and on Waialae Iki and Hawaii Loa Ridges who are utterly comfortable with their success and private high school educations? The settler-culture Asian locals are just as much to blame for the environmental degradation, cultural loss, and political corruption afflicting Hawaii as any other group. David Ige is a nice man who is going to be eaten alive by the power structure. I’m not upset that he won–Abercrombie was fulfilling too many people’s Haole stereotypes–but I pity him if he has any interest in being anything other than a place holder. And don’t get me started on Neighbor Island whining; they suck may more money away from Oahu than their numbers justify.
Most local haole of Ige’s age group easily identify with Ige. This idea that caucasian and asian people do not or have not mixed well has got to be the biggest delusion ever perpetuated on a united group of people. They can’t divide us no matter how hard they try.
The article plays up Ige’s engineering background and translates it to good leadership. Look at DOT which has been led by soft spoken AJA engineers continually racking up lawsuits for their flagrant disregard for communities and the environment. No one in their right mind has ever thought of them as good leaders as they are engineers completely lacking in compassion and social skills. Lets hope Ige doesn’t follow in that mold.
Ige victory reflects people’s disgust with Abercrombie promoting public money for private profit: HCDA stream of exemptions for developers, Kakaako’s lack of truly affordable housing, mostly investment properties for rich foreigners, PLDC (Abercrombie’s idea), and then to tax retirees’ pensions? Nah.
That article shows it is easy to over think even the most obvious points like the reason Ige won is that a whole lot of people do not like Abercrombie. Simple as that. Ray’s arguments are pretty tortured and frankly, unconvincing.
There are interesting points about demographics and urban developments. But I agree with Autumn Rose and Richard Gozinya: Abercrombie squandered whatever popularity he had, because of crony capitalism, a brusque personality, and the pension-tax proposal.
Then there was this. Abercrombie appeared a “bit irked”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWwyb4EzvBU
What’s up with some of these online comments in recent days, containing not-so thinly veiled statements about racial stereotypes and ethnic-bloc voting being responsible for the results in Saturday’s election? Ige and Tsutsui finish on top of their races, and suddenly, something sinister is going on? Somebody writes an article that discusses how an AJA politician’s values and background played a role in his campaign’s success, and all of sudden, that writer’s true agenda was to bash Caucasians?
Need I remind these folks: Just 4 years ago, Abercrombie and Schatz made up the gubernatorial ticket. Peter Carlisle won the special run-off for Honolulu Mayor. Did anyone cry out about the 2012 election being the result of a conspiracy engineered by Whites? Did anyone insinuate that Caucasians were voting as a ethnic bloc then? If not, why do theories about ethnic bloc voting apply to Asians, but not Caucasians?
I thought that the days of Yellow Peril scare tactics were long past. But sad to say, the undercurrents are still there, triggered by ignorance and fear over events they feel uncomfortable with.
@Alan N.
I just went through all the comments, and did not find one single “thinly veiled” anti-Japanese comment. Look at the six comments above your own comment: Not one anti-AJA comment, veiled or not. In fact, most of the comments above are anti-Abercrombie and pro-Ige. That’s how Ige won, not through some AJA conspiracy.
That being said, big chunks of Hawaii’s population never liked Abercrombie. In fact, if Abercrombie became governor through a landslide, it’s because even bigger sections of Hawaii’s population loath Mufi Hannemann. Those who dislike Abercrombie the most seem to be white Republicans and local Japanese. As yet, no one has broached the topic of how a big part of Abercrombie’s defeat was the vote of affluent white Republicans – that section of the population who are most likely to vote in elections – casting a vote for David Ige. In fact, in comment boards like this, white Republicans who don’t have much to say about Duke Iaona praise David Ige.
If Ige is a fiscal conservative, he is also a cultural conservative. That’s another reason Abercrombie, with his stubborn attachment to his long hair even as a veteran politician, rubbed white Republicans and local Asians the wrong way. They don’t like rebels, although they may hold their nose and tolerate it, even with some grudging respect.
But then something happened. In order to get elected, Abercrombie promised full employment to the developers and tradesmen who would have otherwise voted for Hannemann. The result was rapid and poorly planned over-development being shoved down our throats, in Kakaako and other places. At that point, Abercrombie was perceived to be a bully like Mufi, not a rebel. Long-standing conservative discomfort with Abercrombie turned into disgust shared with liberals. But what else was Abercrombie to do? Would you rather have the likes of PRP for you or against you? The alternative to over-development was to have Hannemann as governor, from Abercrombie’s perspective.
The Maui News article is warped. It says that because David Ige is from Pearl City, he can relate to working-class folks from the outer islands. The inference is that he is geographicaly further from the wealthy “power centers” of east Oahu, unlike an earlier generation of AJA politician who were from “town” in urban Honolulu. But that earlier generation of AJA politician were working class (or even poor) and often from the outer islands, not middle class and from the suburbs.
This article reminds me of the Republican propaganda surrounding George W. Bush, about how he can relate to ordinary Americans because he is from Texas. Actually, George W. Bush is from New England, where went to an elite prep school (Andover) and then college (Yale). Ordinary Republicans really buy into this junk.
Kahana, thank you for your response.
You claim that “not one anti-AJA comment” was ever made. If we were talking to each other in person, I would tell you to go over and read through the comments again because there was something *overtly* anti-AJA that you totally overlooked for whatever reason. If you still can’t find it, then I guess it will have to be pointed out.
Hopeful wrote about AJA engineers who worked for the state; “No one in their right mind has ever thought of them as good leaders as they are engineers completely lacking in compassion and social skills.”
Now if that isn’t an example of blatant stereotyping,… if those aren’t negative comments,… then I don’t know what is.
That you failed to pick up on such an overtly anti-Asian statement,.. it doesn’t surprise me that you are oblivious to the more nuanced sentiments. As I said earlier, the modern day incarnation of the Yellow Peril scare is an undercurrent rather than something that is out-and-out obvious.
Allen, you are referring to Hopeful’s comments above. Sorry I missed it. Here’s the comment:
“The article plays up Ige’s engineering background and translates it to good leadership. Look at DOT which has been led by soft spoken AJA engineers continually racking up lawsuits for their flagrant disregard for communities and the environment. No one in their right mind has ever thought of them as good leaders as they are engineers completely lacking in compassion and social skills. Lets hope Ige doesn’t follow in that mold.”
Is it true that DOT is led by AJA engineers? I would guess this is true. Have they been racking up lawsuits for disregarding communities and the environment? I would not know. (Have they?) I am unaware of any such lawsuits. I have never heard of this.
Here’s the substantial offending quote: “No one in their right mind has ever thought of them as good leaders as they are engineers completely lacking in compassion and social skills.” Are these DOT/AJA engineers widely regarded as poor leaders? I’ve never heard that one.
But here’s the crucial part: “…as they are engineers completely lacking in compassion and social skills.” It seems that the focus is on engineers as insensitive. That is a typical stereotype of engineers. Is it also a typical stereotype of AJAs and Asians in general? I would say no, not in general. The stereotype is more of niceness and consideration (e.g., David Ige).
However, is there a stereotype of Asians and AJAs as technician-type people who might be typically socially awkward? Yes, I would say that there is such a stereotype, e.g., on many police shows on TV there seems to be at least one Asian American forensics expert. The old Hawaii 5-O had an older, respectable, scientific Asian type character as forensics expert, and the new Hawaii 5-O as a goofy, geeky young Asian American. That seems to be a stereotypes of Asians, particularly the Japanese, in the US. However, the new Hawaii 5-O generally shows Asians as hunky, sexy and confident. (Is this a stereotype of Koreans, as the actors are Korean?) So I don’t know.
I would therefore admit that there is a common stereotype of Asians/AJAs as socially awkward science geeks. Let’s say that in its extreme form it takes on the image of the insensitive, uncompassionate Asian as technician (although I am unaware of such a stereotype). Does this translate to the stereotype of the Yellow Peril? Yes, perhaps in some cases. The Yellow Peril stereotype would seem to involve the idea of an absolute ruler with a fanatical army of slaves/robots. That image might go back to the Mongol and Hun invasions in Europe, but it was later attached to the Germans (“The Hun”) during WWI, the Germans and Japanese during WWII, and to the Russians and Chinese during the Cold War. But it does not seem to be applied today to North Korea or China. I certainly don’t see anyone attaching it to David Ige who is seen as a thoughtful, reflective listener committed to open government.
Allen, can we call it a draw? The more I think about it, I see your point, but I don’t think it applies to this situation.
Kahana, you share many thoughtful points and ideas which are worthy for discussion. I just have two points to emphasize:
1) “Hopeful” didn’t say that the engineering profession (in general) were made up of people who lacked compassion and social skills. He said that about AJA engineers who worked for the DOT. I’m just going by what this person saying.
So I’m not going to soften my stance about this particular post, which I find rather offensive.
2) Yellow Peril scare tactics is not just about portraying Asians in a crude and offensive manner. It is a concept that also involves stirring up fear, tension, and distrust of Asians. An example of that is Wailau’s post, which interprets positive comments about Ige’s ethnic values and background as being negative barbs against Caucasians. Now, I’m not saying that Wailau has to agree with Ray Tsuchiyama’s article. But twisting the points in the article around and interpreting them as insults and attacks on Caucasians is clearly an attempt at inflaming resentment against AJAs.
People who want to stir up racial tensions in the political arena today know they can’t engage in making overt attacks against their targets without destroying their credibility with mainstream society. So they’ll use more nuanced, subtle ways to plant fear and distrust in people’s minds. Whether you recognize or not, those tactics are being used.
Sorry, Allen N., but I’m not in the ethnic tension business, and I didn’t twist anything. I’m just weary of the local, especially AJA, temptation to see themselves as somehow nobler and freer of self-interest than other cultural groups. What our political history since statehood proves is that politicians from all ethnic groups are equally corruptible, arrogant, and given to excessive self-regard. This is a multi-ethnic occupational hazard and revelatory of a common humanity which, perversely, may be cause for quiet celebration.