Chad Blair: What Are ‘Hawaii Values’?
Driving to work the other day I saw a bumper sticker that read “Grown Here, Not Flown Here.”
Either the owner of the vehicle is harvesting his own garden, or else he is proclaiming local pride. I think it’s probably the latter.
I was neither born here nor grown here, but I first visited Hawaii as a boy in the 1960s. I went to high school in the Marshall Islands in the 1970s, where classmates turned me on to pakalolo and . This year marks my 25th year as a Hawaii local — er, resident. I was a keiki, but not of the aina.
Don’t worry: I won’t turn this column into another one of those “Here’s another malihini haole complaining he can’t be local” rants. (For that, please read Haole? The Unbearable Whiteness of Being.)
But I am trying to figure out exactly what it is we mean when we talk about “Hawaii values” or “local values.”
I bring this up because it’s an election year, and candidates for office in the state are talking a lot about these things, just as they do every election year. Here’s a couple of fresh examples:
• Local Roots, Local Values: Shan was born and raised in the rural, tranquil setting of Wailuku. The tight-knit neighborhood he grew up in fostered the local, simple lifestyle where the sense of community was valued. … Because of his strong connection to his local roots, Shan chose to attend the University of Hawaii at Manoa and earned a degree in economics.
• A graduate of Iolani School, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School, Stanley has been fortunate to attend some of the nation’s leading schools. However, he feels his most meaningful education has been the values both his parents and Hawaii instilled within him — responsibility, honesty, and humility. … Stanley Chang will carry the values of Hawaii into the future for generations to come.
• Will Espero is no stranger to working class values. Like so many of our Hawaii families, the Espero family came here with very little in their pockets — only an intense desire to succeed, a commitment to provide a better future for their family, and the hope that they too can afford the American dream.
That all sounds nice, doesn’t it?
But let’s be realistic: Who would ever vote for a candidate who values irresponsibility, dishonesty and arrogance? Who doesn’t care about community and has no connection to where they came from? Who doesn’t want to succeed or take care of family?
The drug store.
Saying things like “I will fight for Hawaii’s values in the halls of Congress” is understandably more appealing than saying “I look forward to representing a small and far-off state and serving powerlessly in Washington where I will be a freshman in a Republican-controlled House with 435 members. I will futilely vote ‘no’ when my tea party colleagues vote to repeal Obamacare for the umpteenth time. And I will gladly deposit my $174,000 annual salary in my bank account, take junkets to foreign countries, enjoy my and get re-elected again and again.”
Now, I’m certain that U.S. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Colleen Hanabusa would argue that they can and do represent Hawaii’s interests in D.C., and that they are effective at their job.
So I asked Hanabusa — the only member of our congressional delegation born in Hawaii — what she thinks Hawaii or local values are.
“When you hear the reference to local values or Hawaii values, it really is … the fact that we are a community of all minorities,” she said. “There is no dominant group as you would see in the other … states. We don’t have that. So when we talk about local values or Hawaii values we’re talking about how people have been able to come together. And we adopt many of each other’s cultures.”
Hanabusa says this experience is what “makes Hawaii special.” It includes small things, like ordering saimin at a restaurant or eating SPAM musubi, and big things, like respecting kupuna — our elders — and the Native Hawaiian host culture.
“That’s part of being here,” she explained. “But what it infuses is acceptance, and the understanding, and the appreciation for all of us.”
In the interest of equal time, I asked Hanabusa’s opponent in the U.S. Senate race how he defines local or Hawaii values.
“To me it means we’re all in this together,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz. “It is an understanding that when you live on an island, then you are all in this together. That everybody plays a role, and that everybody matters. … It’s an understanding that we can’t escape each other.”
Schatz said there is a direct link between island values and advocating for public policy issues like protecting Social Security (something Hanabusa also strongly advocates for). But Schatz said it also means comporting oneself in a certain way.
“In terms of political leadership, it is about making sure that you are not necessarily the loudest person, or the most aggressive person in the legislative context,” he said. “Or that you are the one on the cable TV shows criticizing the other side. Especially in the Senate. That having a little humility, being part of a team, proves to (be for) all of Hawaii’s benefit.”
Schatz turned part of his answer to my question into a campaign pitch for his own candidacy, much more so than Hanabusa, who nonetheless mentioned by name voting blocs she no doubt wants to appeal to. But I thought both candidates provided thoughtful answers that overlapped in key ways.
What I didn’t ask — and I will close with this — is whether recent arrivals to the islands can understand our values and embody them. Because in some ways, a politician saying he or she supports Hawaii or island or local values means that you’re not from Cleveland, or Florida, or Ames, Iowa. Even though people in those locales probably love senior citizens, too.
I’m reminded of another popular bumper sticker: “Slow down. This ain’t the mainland.” As we all know, there are a lot of people in Hawaii who drive quite fast. We’ve got Costco, we root for the Seahawks, we fly to Vegas. We’ve got lots of homeless people. Kakaako is towering into the sky. And all of us — all of us, even if it was centuries ago — come from somewhere else.
And there is another, potential divisive side to the values equation: religion. As I wrote in a recent column (Eat, Pray, Vote), there are many voters in faith-based communities who wish to elect leaders who think and believe as they do.
I agree with Rep. Hanabusa: We are special. And I agree with Sen. Schatz: A little humility goes a long way. But we should be careful when we begin to think we are more special and humble than anyone else. Because we really are all in this together.
The commute.
Contact Chad Blair via email at cblair@civilbeat.com or follow him on Twitter at .
