How to Enjoy Hawai’i (Or: This is Not Your Personal Playground)

I am 2/3 of the way above the crater floor on the Kilauea Iki trail when I hear a clattering thud behind me. This is unmistakably the sound of someone falling down a slope and hitting the ground HARD.

“That wasn’t very smart,” says Sylvia.

“Yeah, uh, maybe stick to the trail,” says my Dad.

I turn around to see a tall, thin caucasian man — unequivocally a tourist, perhaps 25 to thirty years old— dusting himself off, a halo of organic debris surrounding his impact zone on the crushed gravel. He has clearly attempted to take a shortcut between the switchbacks in the trail, tumbling down a slope of about 12 feet and dislodging soil and shrubs in the process. I shake my head in disgust and continue up the trail, my pace a bit more rapid for my growing irritation. Another ignorant, arrogant haole, I think to myself. Christ, this place is crawling with them today.

It is July 11th, 2021 — my 43rd birthday. I am back home on the Big Island of Hawai’i, hiking in Volcanoes National Park with my dad and his partner Sylvia. I am here for a 2 week vacation that I am in desperate need of. Judging by the packed flights, dearth of rental cars, and throngs of pale visitors almost everywhere I go, so are most of the tourists which have flocked to the archipelago this summer. Understandable, given the past year and a half… 2020 was an unmitigated disaster, with a hangover extending into the early months of 2021. Life is speedy, stressful, and full of aggression these days. We can’t seem to shake the coronavirus, nor the naked partisan distrust that has riven the country along political fault lines. Culture wars abound. Who wouldn’t want a break from this insanity? A Hawaiian vacation seems just the thing, doesn’t it?

I was born in Hilo, on the island of Hawai’i, and grew up on the Hamakua coast, though I have been living in the mainland United States pretty much continuously since 1996. Whenever I meet someone who is not an island local, I am regaled with either fond memories of their past vacations to Hawai’i or with breathless aspirations to visit. Either way, I am told how lucky and blessed I am to be from there, and am bombarded with questions of why I ever left.

I never quite know how to respond in these situations. I left for a reason — or rather, a variety of reasons, relating to a lack of educational, occupational, vocational, and cultural opportunities. Living in Hawai’i is ludicrously expensive, with everyday items like gasoline and milk costing roughly twice their mainland counterparts. Nascent small-scale agriculture on the side, the local economy is almost exclusively targeted towards tourism. The state government is slow to address the rising financial inequity, opting to appeal to moneyed mainlanders and their fever-dreams of a tropical paradise designed to cater to their whims. Gentrification is a heartbreaking consequence, with people whose families stretch back generations having to leave the lands of their ancestors in order to make ends meet… Polynesians and Pacific Islanders quite literally being priced out of paradise by the unrelenting engine of capitalism.

Having been an aspiring musician since the age of 12, there are very few professional opportunities in the islands. Many of those opportunities go to people playing at hotels or other venues for tourists, and most of those opportunities go to either DJs or artists playing Hawaiian music. Neither of those are my specialty. I had little choice but to cross the Pacific to further my education, experience, and professional circumstances, should I aspire to anything greater than donning an aloha shirt and playing ukulele songs to the always questionable taste of tourists. And to be honest, I was eager to leave. “Get me off of this rock” is a common refrain for young, passionate, inspired teenagers seeking something greater. It was with great relief that I relocated to the Pacific Northwest for my university studies. I didn’t look back, until I did.

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The State of Hawai’i is the only of the 50 states that was once an independent and internationally recognized kingdom. Kamehameha the Great was the first modern ali’i (chieftain) to unite all of the inhabited islands under the rule of a single monarch, in the late 1700s. He did so with the aid of cannons and firearms that were a result of trading with the recently arrived British; a shrewd and unexpected maneuver that decidedly tipped the balance of power in interisland conflicts. His fledgling dynasty welcomed international traders and workers, granting access to European missionaries and businessmen, becoming an agrarian trading kingdom in the process. Sugar, pineapples, and coffee became some of the main cash crops that helped usher in the modern era. The Hawaiian Kingdom was adaptive and forward-thinking — ‘Iolani Palace, the seat of the monarchy, had electricity before Buckingham Palace did — even though the underlying openness and friendliness were the seeds of its demise. Colonizers are, after all, colonizers… and the one thing a colonizer can’t abide is paradise in the possession of someone other than themselves, especially if the possessors are of a darker complexion.

Unsurprisingly, the arrival of Europeans also introduced both disease and cultural eradication, the latter as a result of the missionaries. Much as with the American continents, the lack of natural resistance to these diseases decimated the population, and the cultural norms enforced by Christianity left native practices endangered. The European businessmen added some Americans to their ranks. They expanded their influence on the kingdom by forcing King David Kalakaua to sign the “Bayonet Constitution” in 1887, which limited voting rights to all except landholders — thus favoring the white elite over the native population, immigrant laborers, and any other non-whites. No points for guessing how the Bayonet Constitution got its moniker.

The fate of the kingdom was sealed when Queen Lili’uokalani asserted her plans for a new constitution, as well as absolute rule by the monarchy. A cabal of the Euro-American landowners convinced the commanding officer of a company of U.S. Marines moored in Pearl Harbor to storm ‘Iolani Palace. The palace guards did not put up any resistance; Queen Lili’uokalani was arrested and imprisoned in the palace dungeon. A provisional government was instated, lead by “President” Sanford B. Dole (whose cousin founded the Dole food company — something to consider when you buy Dole pineapples), who then negotiated annexation by the United States. In response, the administration of U.S. President Grover Cleveland commissioned the Blount report, finding that the Kingdom of Hawai’i was illegally overthrown. The administration demanded the restoration of Queen Lili’uokalani to the throne, which the provisional government refused. The U.S. Congress commissioned an “independent” investigation, submitting the Morgan Report, finding that none of the conspirators, nor soldiers, were guilty of or responsible for the coup. The kingdom was officially annexed in 1898, with the approval of U.S. President William McKinley. The territory was then granted statehood in 1959.

In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed an “Apology Resolution,” which was signed by President Bill Clinton. This resolution acknowledged that the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was illegal, that “agents and citizens” of the United States participated in the coup, that the result was the suppression of Hawaiian sovereignty, and that “the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands, either through the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi or through a plebiscite or referendum.” This resolution inspired a surge in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement which continues to this day.

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The beauty of Hawai’i is enhanced by its fragility. With over 400 species of endangered plants and animals — which exist nowhere else on earth — the environment is a critical habitat in need of protection. And yet the recklessness of tourists abounds. People degrade the environment by leaving trail areas and damaging the local ecosystem. Litter infests well-traveled sites of cultural and environmental importance. Beaches, parks, and resorts are treated like playgrounds that exist only for the amusement of those wealthy enough to afford a visit to the islands. And more than anything else, the sense of entitlement by visitors — the attitude of “well, I paid for this, so I deserve to get whatever I want out of it” — pollutes the cultural, spiritual, and ultimately physical environments that are all such precious, limited resources.

This is why I shake my head and walk more vigorously at the thought of another stupid haole disrupting the local ecosystem with an ill-considered shortcut. This is why I resent the long lines of traffic through the small towns of my youth. This is what makes me tremble with anger when hearing the obvious derision and contempt of a mainlander berating their server or local staff. This is the continuing mindset of a colonizer, repeated ad nauseum with each new airplane full of mainland visitors — the idea that Hawai’i exists only for their pleasure and enjoyment, and that they deserve to take it simply because it is available. This is not an amusement park; this is someone’s HOME.

There is much said about the Aloha Spirit of the islands, of how friendly and easy-going the locals are. But the most important part of the Aloha Spirit is that everyone is responsible for it; everyone needs to contribute. To take without offering in return is a violation of all that is sacred in the islands. To enhance the experience of others; to be friendly, welcoming, humble, open-minded, and considerate; to care for the environment and the people around you; that is what is considered Pono in Hawai’i. Pono means “righteousness,” and this more than anything else is the basis of Aloha or the Aloha Spirit. It is to do right by word and deed, and to take care of that which is around you. The Hawai’i State motto is “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono,” which roughly translated means “the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” Food for thought at what makes a paradise just that.

I have always had a vague, nebulous knowledge that I would be returning to the islands for good one day… usually after some imagined dream of success found its way to me in some imagined time in the future. This last visit home crystallized some things for me; I will return sooner than I originally thought. Perhaps in 5 years, perhaps in 10. Either way, the timeline is far more concrete than I initially envisioned. And it is not just the pristine environment that draws me back — the way that the ocean pounds on the rocky coasts like a war drum, and then whispers with a shush over white sand beaches like the most seductive of lovers; the way the wind howls across the prairies of Waikoloa and blows stinging sideways rain like an army of wasps in Waimea, and then puffs gently on the Hamakua coast in the cool evenings, carrying the scent of plumerias; the moderate temperatures, where 95 degrees Fahrenheit is uncommonly hot, and 55 degrees Fahrenheit is uncommonly cold — it’s also the cultural environment… the way time slows, and how people manage their affairs in a generally unhurried manner, embracing the leisurely rhythm of daily island life. The warmth and friendliness of people who know just how fortunate they are to live there. The welcoming atmosphere for those of us who grew up there, and may have had adventures elsewhere, or been lead astray, and need a place to rest.

To those who ask now: yes, I am tremendously lucky and blessed to call Hawai’i home. Doubly so for my ability to return. And most especially for the way in which my upbringing there, and my periodic visits home, have inspired me to try to live aloha wherever I am.

Should you ever visit, I hope you learn to live aloha too.