The Exploitation State

Now I know why Angelenos wash their cars every few days.

After a five-hour flight back to LAX from Honolulu, and waiting at the baggage carrousel for a half hour, the C Lot shuttle dropped me off at my car. It was caked in about a millimeter of smog dust, the nasty particulate matter that settles on everything with the morning dew. It was a SoCal “welcome home,” and, believe it or not, I gladly accepted it.

My five-day trip to the Aloha State was a well-earned perk for my work with the Journal of Urban Affairs. I was invited, and graciously accommodated, by the Urban Affairs Association, the journal’s managing association, which was hosting its annual conference at the Sheraton Waikiki. I was only required to attend a recognition lunch on Friday, so the rest of my time was spent touring and experiencing Honolulu and Oahu.

Unlike most of Hawaii’s visitors, I did not go to Pearl Harbor or the other military landmarks. Their historical significance is obvious and alluring, but the glorification of war and destructive power is not my thing. Not only that, but I didn’t want to deal with the über-nationalism and all the wrinkled and pasty skin. I instead wanted to plumb the natural and cultural beauty of the state as best I could.

My first impression of Hawaii came about an hour before landing in Honolulu. The flight stewardesses handed out Hawaii Agricultural Declaration Forms, which everyone was required by law to complete. The form asked about any plants or animals being brought into the state, a very proactive approach to keep biological invaders at bay. The flip side dealt with invaders of another type: those with money in their pockets. It was a questionnaire (required by law to complete?) asking how long I was staying, why I was going, where I was from, if I was attending a conference at the Hawaii Convention Center. The declaration had a point, but the survey… Not so much. It wasn’t surprising, though, as I knew tourism was a major industry in Hawaii.

Man, is it ever a major industry.

I’ve never been to Tokyo, but I assume it’s much like being in Waikiki — minus the beaches and exotic hotels. Figuratively, the Japanese invade Pearl Harbor every day. They outnumbered everyone (maybe even the residents of Honolulu) ten to one. Along with English and Hawaiian, you’d think Japanese was also an official language; the brochures at the hotel, the restaurant menus, and pricing and route information on the tourist trolleys were in English and Japanese. Now, don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with the Japanese. But I was shocked to see them swarming Hawaii in such great numbers. I was under the impression the economy there has been in the toilet for the past 20 years, so I have no clue where all their money came from, especially since most of them were my age or a little younger, loaded down with shopping bags from the high-end stores lining Kalakaua Avenue.

During my first full day I took “The Bus,” Oahu’s island-wide transit system, to the Bishop Museum. The museum was awesome, and I highly recommend it to anyone planning a Hawaiian vacation, but the ride to and from was a real eye opener.

Hawaii is poor. Once out of the tourist haven of Waikiki, I saw the genuine side of Honolulu. Empty storefronts, gang tags, dilapidated houses with overgrown and junked yards, densely packed and deteriorating apartment buildings. It looked something like I picture Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, or any other tropical Asian city; it had that dirty, colonial boomtown, past its heyday look. The bus passed a massive government housing project, parks peppered with make shift homeless tents, and at each stop were members of that destitute, hard worked, and deprived class of people who are used, abused, and forgotten by the high-times of Waikiki. I would have never imaged a supposed paradise being so impoverished. There was social bankruptcy on every corner.

Taking city transit is probably the ultimate way to experience a new city, and using The Bus system is something I also recommend if you want to see the real Aloha State.

On Thursday I took an awesome, island-encompassing tour through E Noa Tours, which I also highly recommend. We didn’t travel to the far west side of the island because the perimeter road has not been completed. It probably never will be. The reason, said Carlos, our tour guide, was because the beaches on the far west side are inhabited by hundreds of homeless natives, who are unable to afford housing. Fueled by the bottomless pockets of the military and the guaranteed housing money it provides servicemen and women, land lords have pushed rents sky high, way beyond the means of local natives. Though they don’t have homes, they still have jobs; the parking lots along the beaches are full of their cars. It’s something the state government doesn’t want tourists to see, and the first sad and revealing revelation made by Carlos. Half Latino and half Hawaiian, Carlos was well informed. He took us to the Dole Plantation, the North Shore (where the native Hawaiians have been displaced by rich, vacation and seasonal home owners), a coffee and macadamia nut farm, rain forest valleys, the Moli’ fish pond, Byodo-In Temple, the Pali Lookout, the “Blow Hole,” and Hanauma Bay. Carlos took us through the homestead areas, where only Hawaiians with a certain percentage of native blood are able to live, and the poor rural communities where jobs are scarce. One cool thing Carlos mentioned, as we rounded the northern shores, was that all the beaches in Hawaii are public. Anyone can go on any beach; Hawaiian law requires that the public have access to the shore. However, before skirting the slopes of Diamond Head Crater, we drove through the “Beverly Hills of Honolulu,” where Carlos pointed out the mansions and the shady attempts the rich have made to keep the public off the beaches. They disguise the narrow access lanes as driveways, posting mailboxes without addresses on the street.

The whole time I was there, I felt a confusing mix of emotions. I was awed by the beauty, but deeply disturbed by the vast inequality and blatant social, cultural, and environmental abuse. The more I saw and experienced, the more I realized everything about Hawaii, at least Oahu, is being exploited to extreme. The people, culture, language, and environment are being abused and imposed on not only by the massive tourist industry, but also by the government and military. It was sickening, and it tainted my entire trip. I couldn’t fully enjoy Hawaii because I felt so ashamed of taking part, however small, in the exploitation.

On Friday I hung around the hotel and beach to attend the lunch, then took the shuttle back to the airport early on Saturday. Riding through central Honolulu on the H1 freeway (which needs to be signed as an Interstate for the state to get federal highway funds), I saw the same impecunious I saw from the B Express bus: packed and shoddy apartment buildings, an outdated and deteriorating road system, and neighborhoods of destitute houses. Maybe it’s just Honolulu’s style, but it looked sad to me; it didn’t look like paradise for most of the population. Closer to the airport, near the military bases, were recently built and well-kept suburban homes with Old Glory flying proudly and big SUVs in the driveways.

As strange as it sounds, I couldn’t wait to get back to the smog and its particulate frosting.