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What’s missing from the map below? Hint: It’s the island of Molokai.

The map image is made from parts of an old Hawaii postcard deconstructed and reconstructed to emphasize my point.

Much more than ever, when people hear I’m from Molokai they remark on how it must be special to come from a place where visitors need to be invited.

When I first began to hear this more than a decade ago, I was polite about the small island of Molokai with its population of 7,400, being possibly confused with the privately owned island of Niihau that hosts a population of roughly 130 Hawaiians. Was it confusion?

A bold hand-painted sign in town reads “Tourists Not Welcome.” The other side of the sign reads “Visit, Spend, Go Home” and faces outgoing visitors heading back toward the Hoolehua airport. It’s been a few years now and the sign continues its prominent display from a homestead lot by the highway.

Before you get on the bandwagon of discussing the civility of this particularly polarizing sign, let’s instead realize it is a symptom of a community under pressure.

I’m here to report that the reintroduction of tourism after a two year hiatus has created an anxious response from this community.

The root cause? Gentrification.

Let me explain.

‘Stubborn  Resilience’

Look on Zillow. There are no single-family homes available for sale because the urban exodus created by remote work has led people to relocate here.

We have one airline we can no longer afford. Tourists eager to return have snatched up every discounted seat weeks and sometimes months ahead. More so than ever, locals who need to book essential travel are lucky to find an open seat at all.

Residents like me who work part time off island no longer have that option. Members from my own family have had major medical procedures set back by months due to seat availability and scheduling issues.

If you know Molokai, however, you know about our stubborn resilience. We are also known to be resourceful.

Over a dozen community members and leaders including state Sen. Lynn DeCoite, Maui County Council Finance Chair Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Hawaiian rights activist Walter Ritte came together recently as participants of the Destination Management Action Plan or DMAP, a statewide project administered by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

The conversation was, yes, heated at times (this is Molokai, folks). But when it finally carried on after several hours of debate, this scrappy group came up with something quite surprising.

The Molokai group, in meeting overtime, listed at least three items worth highlighting:

• that Molokai, as a destination, be removed from all future HTA marketing efforts;
• that the single HTA position on Molokai, that was axed during the pandemic, be restored; and finally
• that HTA support community efforts in understanding visitor impacts in order to determine Molokai’s visitor capacity.

The final overarching ask? That these ideas be brought directly out of committee to the general public so that the community here can engage and decide what is best for itself.

But will Molokai disappear if removed from the map?

Molokai had the lowest unemployment in the state during the pandemic. Sustainable Molokai, a local NGO known for its broad-reaching sustainability efforts, has doubled its employee base to over 30 people with other organizations following their lead.

We are witnessing the return of our youth engaged in islandwide community building efforts that include conservation, agriculture, renewable energy and workforce development.

Caring for the people, places and the things we love — we are stubborn about that, too. As the world’s special places continue to disappear, Molokai’s ability to cling to its values is of important relevance.

Molokai’s ability to cling to its values is of important relevance.

Indeed Molokai is removing itself from one map and placing itself onto another.  A map that points to a place that isn’t necessarily a destination, but a place that is more well known: home.

I can’t claim to know how things here will work out. But I do know, like us, there are communities all over Hawaii suffering the deep impacts of tourism, gentrification and inequity.

This is just to let you know we’re in it, too. That perhaps there are creative alternatives to this idea that Hawaii needs to be a destination for someone else, from somewhere else.