My Hawaii Rant

When I was just turning 6, we (family of 7) moved to Hawaii.

Now, Hawaii is a place that's been promoted and over-promoted since it was a place for the whalers to get drunk and chase girls, and especially in the 20th century it's been promoted so hard that history has often taken a back seat to fantasy narratives. Like the idea that the Hawaiians were peaceful and loving and all that bullshit. Yeah, when they weren't spearing and eating each other...

The book "Anatomy Of Paradise" was written before things got so politically correct, and there are good descriptions of the early days in Hawaii and what kind of people the Hawaiians' rulers were. In short, they were savages. They'd have a dog cooked up, a servant would plop it down on the table, and a king or prince etc. would eat the whole thing. While the (white) observer had to sit and watch them eat, because regardless of whites' disgust of eating dog, it was a way to show the king had all the power. The scruffiest Bedouin in his tent would offer a visitor at least some hot water and chick peas.

No, by and large the Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are a mean bunch, and if you are not family or someone they think they can get something out of, you might be fun to throw rocks at, or worse, for amusement. I'm not going to try to recount all the bad memories and experiences I had there as a kid and as a young adult. I've really seriously considered going back there to retire, and I just can't.

It'd be a horrible place to be, anyway. Not only the bad memories but the fact that although I grew up there, speak the local patois, know the local customs, and all the things that make you part of a culture, I was, and would always be, a hated outsider. There's not much socializing here in California because life on the mainland is not about socializing but working, but at least I'm not a hated outsider. I can walk down the street, go into any store, use the post office or DMV or library or what-have-you, with no resistance. Paperwork isn't delayed due to the sound of my last name. I don't get hassled by cops.

But what really amazes me is, this thing that's going on lately, where whites try to ... learn Hawaiian Pidgin? Why does some upper-middle-class kid who went to a good college, now want to sound like a plantation worker from Waialua? Why the actual fuck?  Other than jokingly, I don't see whites taking on the Scots-inflected Jamaican accent. It's well understood that you can't "become" a member of  a distinct group if you're not .... part of that group from the start. You can move to Japan and learn Japanese, but you'll always be that white person who's pretty good at Japanese, and that's that. And everyone's happy with that.

But whites move to Hawaii and try to "become" Hawaiian somehow. It doesn't work, and when push comes to shove, you'll eternally be that "fucking haole". Jews learned this in Europe and this is why they have their own country now. White South Africans are learning this lesson on an ongoing basis, and essentially don't have a country any more. Many are still back there, but they know sooner or later they'll be chased out, or worse.

Growing up with such an awareness of needing a place where you can say "This is my home" is why I went here to California, where I do have some family roots, for what that's worth.

I'm not WASP enough to move to England and say that's my country, and not Lithuanian enough to go there and say that's where I'm from. I *am*, however, if I convert, according to ye olde Talmud, as Jewish as any Jew (OK maybe not a Cohen or a Levi but good enough) and am perfectly welcome in Israel. There are Jews of every complexion, from pale Polish Ashkenazi to dark Ethiopians, and even Chinese Jews. But I'm in a really sweet spot, of looking European with "something extra".

I miss Hawaii but over time one tends to forget the bad stuff, the hunger, the bleakness, the threats of violence, the knowing that because of your race you're destined to only do the work no one else wants to do. The beautiful beaches and places I had to myself have since become inundated by tourists and now with the virus, it's Hawaiian cops happy to hassle "haoles" for ... being there. The nastiness will come out, mark my words. My sisters will be OK I think, one being married to a cop and the other to a military officer/lawyer. They'll have connections to stay safe or get out.

I was considering New Orleans but .... it's the South. It's pretty but ... it's the South. It has good music but ... it's the South.

What's in the future for Hawaii? Bought by the Chinese? They put all their economic eggs in the basket of tourism and now the coronavirus, like mice, has torn that basket to shreds. People there can go back to farming if they don't mind living like early 20th century Okinawans, which wouldn't be bad but not everyone's cup of tea. Loss of tourism could easily cut the population in half in a very short time. They'll just leave.

In the end it's just too small and far away from everywhere else. The history of Pacific islands having hard times and half the population eating the other half is a long one. There are even T-Shirts in Hawaii saying 'Haole: the other white meat'. Yeah they're a barrel of laughs that way.