Hawaii classic or dud

You'd think they would be sick of the Hula dance by now. Quick Quick: Pop stars from Hawaii.

I'm going to Hawaii at the end of February. I will be staying on Oahu, and will have a car. I will be there for 5 days. What should I do?

Retrace all my steps in the five days I was there, obv. And gr8080 to thread.

And those steps would be, Mr. Raggett? Come on, man. I need ASSISTANCE!

I think you're supposed to veg on the beach and go hiking (in nature.)

My sister is in Hawaii RITE NOW. I have never been.

Steve Shasta to thread as well.

ANYWAY, B.L.A.M., since you asked -- I'd say since you have a car, get out of Honolulu as much as possible and enjoy the Windward coast as well as the North Shore. Center of the island = flat and dull, stop only as needed and otherwise just use it to get to where you're going. Avoid the Polynesian Cultural Center at all costs. Get at least one meal if not lots from shrimp trucks. Eat poke. And relax on the beach, by all means.

Hey I live here too. Ned call me to the thread too please :)

Five days eh?

One day should be spent making a circuit of the island. Head up to the North Shore and poke around Haleiwa. Have shrimp plate at Macky's. Then you cruise along over to windward side and take a break at Hukilau beach park. Stop to take a look at Chinaman's Hat. Then you can head to Kailua and take a look around. Head back to Honolulu on the Pali Hwy.

Interesting neighborhoods in Honolulu:
Chinatown/Downtown/Iolani Palace area
Kaimuki
Manoa
If you want to see the "other side of paradise" you can head over to Leeward side and see the tent cities on the beach. The whole area is really local and a far cry from Waikiki. It's not dangerous or anything, but you should be somewhat aware of your surroundings.

Good shopping:
Ward Center
Ala Moana Mall

Good nature closer to Honolulu:
Hanauma Bay/Sandys Beach
Manoa Falls
Makiki Valley hike (there are tons of nice hikes)
Diamond Head
Ala Moana Beach Park & Waikiki are actually pretty nice beaches and super convenient

A few things to do in Honolulu:
Honolulu Academy of Arts is a beautiful nice complex and a nice way to spent an hour or two
Honolulu Zoo is nothing special but a nice stroll with animals around
Bishop Museum has a variety of exhibits in culture, history, and science. Gift shop has some cool stuff too.
Contemporary Museum of Art is beautiful and has interesting art.
Drive up to Tantalus and cruise Round Top Drive and see the amazing night views of Honolulu.

I'm sure there is more, but that should get you started. Also, don't rule out a day trip to a neighbor island. Airfare is cheap and flights are short.

Hey I'm in Honolulu for the week for work - planning to hire a car at the weekend at get out and about. In the meantime though: any suggestions for nice places to eat in Honolulu? Thanks for the stuff already suggested.

i will be there (oahu) for six days in three weeks. thanks super cub for those recommendations, any others welcome. I'll have my kid with me (4yrs).

ooh me too, me too (in about 6 weeks). Thinking of spending most time in Oahu, maybe a couple days gawping at volcanos on the big island. Unlikely I'll have a car, so not sure what's do-able.

hard to get out to volcanoes on the big island w/out a car

Hawaii sucks, man.

i had such a great time! i was there for work 3 days and then spent 4 days just relaxing on the beach, exploring honolulu + one day i hired a car and drove all around oahu. the north shore beaches were out of this world.....

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7395/13867618500418654613045.jpg

i wish i'd spent more than one day doing this actually. make sure you don't make my mistake of getting accidentally trapped by mormons inside this fucking creepy temple in laie. eat at all the shrimp trucks! and yeah i second the museum of contemporary art it has some cool things and the ground are beautiful + peaceful. was the most expensive place in the states i've ever been tho iirc.

My sister said that Hawaii used to suck but that it wasn't as bad now. I haven't been there, not sure what changed but she wouldn't have been caught dead in Hawaii ten or fifteen years ago.

oh yeah and poke is delicious!

My sister said that Hawaii used to suck but that it wasn't as bad now.

wha???

She used to be a travel agent FWIW. I think it used to attract the wrong kind of tourists, in her opinion.

Honeymooners?

I don't think my opinion is that fascinating, but no, it just seems to be a general perception of a lot of people I know offline (in the travel industry). Sorry if I make no sense at all but when about ten people suddenly go there who wouldn't be caught dead there I would assume something is different.

I love Hawai'i. Really amazing place. Haters keep on hating so that I have to deal with less of you yokels when I'm there.

i love an 'okina

u s steel, some people actually live here. A place isn't defined by tourist experiences as described by your sister, the travel agent.

dude, you've obviously never been to the Sizzler on a Monday night in Peoria.

is it naive to rely on taxis/ public transportation if we're not gonna have a car? tbh the first chunk in Oahu will be filled with taking-it-easy so afaict it shouldn't be too bad. but can we get to the main big volcano on the big island ok? (only just beginning to read up on this hence my staggering lack of knowledge).

def. rent a car for a day trip like going to volcanoes.

if you physically cant rent a car for some legal/personal reason, i'd look into some kind of tour bus service. you'll spend less than with a taxi.

Big Island = Big like Montana not Big like a big city.

i don't have a licence! Which, I'm finding, is a completely alien concept to most Americans :) - beginning to see why any time I venture out of SF tho.
Good plan re tour bus, thanks.

when are you here (oahu)? i'll drive you around for a day if i'm free.

classic classic classic

esp. the big island

xp
!! that's unbelievably kind. No dates sorted yet as juggling several things, but probably late Sept - early Oct. I'll be frothing with excitement all over this thread nearer the time, no doubt. Sorry, that sounds disgusting.

i wish wish wish i'd gone to the big island. another time i guess.

xp

yeah gross dude no frothing in my car jeez

is it naive to rely on taxis/ public transportation if we're not gonna have a car?

Oahu has a good public bus system:

www.thebus.org

You can get around urban Honolulu with ease, and you can take buses to more scenic and remote locations. Check out the route map. Like any public bus service, it can be slow though. It's a realistic option for most destinations.

bad link

http://www.thebus.org/

I got a driving licence! And have hired a car on both Oahu and Hawai'i. Was almost going to not bother in Oahu but looks like we could easily spend as much on taxis as car rental so bit the bullet (it will be my first time driving as a proper licensed driver...)

Uh this is totally cheesy but I want to do one of those tours of Lost filming locations. Anyone done one/got any advice? Seemed like a good way of getting my Lost fix as well as getting a good tour of the island in one day.

i had some college friends here for a wedding a few weeks ago and they did one of the LOST tours and really enjoyed it. none of them had ever been to Hawaii before so it was a nice way to see the island even without all the nerdy LOST stuff.

i dont know who they ended up going with, but they said he had two tours, a 5 hour one and an 11 hour one i think. the 5 hour one basically takes you from Waikiki over to Kualoa Ranch where a lot of the jungle and valley scenes were shot. Kualoa Ranch costs money to get in no matter what so going on a LOST tour is worth it. (parts of Jurassic Park and Godzilla were filmed there too). He even had props for fun photos:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs377.snc4/45978_1529341404616_1567161126_31254446_3121159_n.jpg

lol smokemonster:
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs398.snc4/46090_1529342924654_1567161126_31254472_4365699_n.jpg

the 11 hour tour continues on up the windward (East) coast to the North Shore, where most of the beach locations are. however, if you're renting a car, this is one of my favorite drives ever-- it might be more fun to do it on your own.

when are you coming? offer still stands to show you around. i can show you the gas station where Claire got into a car accident, the Bar where Sawyer met Christian, the bunker where Sayid was held in Iraq, the building used for the Sidney airport among other things.

Do you like snorkeling?

That sure does look like something else besides a smoke monster.

lol right?

called in sick to work yesterday, arrived today to find that the backup projectionist had not seen the note (addressed to me) warning me to remove the ad slide for our upcoming "comedy ERUPTION!" event, thus causing complaints at last night's movie-- which was the death of stalin, so i'm not rly sure i'm willing to take the offended seriously.

Are you the person that used to work at Turtle Bay?

We had at very close 5.1 a couple of days ago. It was loud. I have been in an 8 point something before. These things suck even knowing to expect them or to wake up to shaking in the middle of the night.

nah we've had/still have a few hawaii-based ilxors (was that gr80?)-- i just tech at a theatre in hilo.

and yeah standards are low here but notgonnalie that 6.9 was scary.

not at all nice.

insane:
https://jalopnik.com/watch-lava-from-the-kilauea-volcano-swallow-a-ford-must-1825822759

saw that this morning, it just eats right through it

Terrifying yet gorgeous all the same.

Is that R2D2, just waiting there, watching his car burn?

It's a p nice touch, that.

http://www.scifimoviezone.com/imagestarwars/starwars5script764.jpg

okay what is it about this thread that makes me do that

o well shouldn't have hotlinked anyway.

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180507223102-cm-101-hawaii-volcano-0507-exlarge-169.jpg

I think I found the guy who owned the R2D2

he's doing that thing eleven does with her hands

it's true, she does do that a lot

new thread idea

Other Hawaii news: This is the cloudiest year I have ever seen here and Honolulu feels like I'm living in a warmer Minneapolis (which is overcast all the time). Not complaining, I love this weather.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/how-to-look-at-hawaiis-lava/559988/

USGS alert increased from orange to red?

We no sked 'em

couldn't find the right screencap of the construction foreman in majora's mask: "cowards! let it fall!"

after that plume yesterday even the town smells like sulfur

Kilauea is erupting:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawaii-volcano-kilauea-eruption-update-today-2018-05-17-live-stream-updates/

at this point i think we'd prefer a big trad eruption at halemaumau to these constant random explosions elsewhere in the system / constant subliminal earthquakes / constant air degradation / constant people wanting to tell you exactly how high the apocalyptic wave would be if the east rift zone went. taking these last two big ash plumes as a good sign? the mountain seems to need to clear its throat. nb i don't know anything about anything.

i keep thinking whoever i'm with farted

They may have though

That photo of 30s dudes playing golf in the shadow of the ash is fake, right?

bummer how much stuff we've routinely visited on the Big Island is getting destroyed - RIP Ahalanui Warm Water Pond, Kapoho tide pools :(

pele teaches us life is change

the boiling sunset-red clouds over pahoa, lit from below in otherwise pitch-dark night skies, are something else, btw

pele teaches us life is change

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, July 12, 2018 3:19 PM (three hours ago)

pele otm

heading to dry side of the Big Island tomorrow morning

! how long for? i need an excuse for go kona cuz i have store credit to clear at the island's single remaining medium-sized bookstore

Til the 11th, currently stuck on the tarmac tho >:(

hope they're serving pog

Fuckin United, so no

dlh - sorry I missed ya, looks like we cross-ilx e-mailed each other lol. in any event, trip was fraught with intruding unforeseen circumstances, both kids got sick in succession (fevers, etc.) and then as soon as they were better I promptly injured myself at the beach and had to go to urgent care in Waimea so um yeah. Island is still beautiful though!

Haunani-Kay Trask on the word "haole" — so classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LYLc2gIFOE

Kapaemahu's probably classic as well. (And very different from the above.) It's a gorgeous animated short that gives insight into Hawaiian concepts of healing and gender, narrated in 100% Hawaii ʻōlelo.

Can watch 'em here: https://www.kapaemahu.com/

I like that they specified that it was Ni'ihau Hawaiian, probably to account for the dialectical differences compared to Hawaiian that is institutionally taught throughout the rest of the state. I appreciate that the website quotes Kamakau and emphasizes the importance of Hawaiian history as told by Hawaiians. Kumu Hina is doing some very important work as far as Hawaiian history, culture, and identity. I never learned māhū as a bad word, and I didn't realize that it had those connotations to people until I was in high school, when I saw people take offense.

Also that Trask video (among others) were very popular in my HS/College days. The argument for/against the use of the word "haole" has always been interesting to me, similiarly to above, because I never understood what was wrong with it. Growing up, I didn't initially learn it as a pejorative. It was always just a descriptor, akin to "kanaka" unless another adjective was added to it.

I always find it interesting to find out the perspectives of Hawaiian history/culture from those who are not from Hawai'i. History of the Hawaiian monarchy is compulsory here, in elementary, intermediate, AND high school, though it might have been more emphasized in my high school than others.

4-year UH programs (and maybe community colleges?) also require a Hawaiian studies course in all programs, which I very much appreciated. I moved here as a middle-school kid, and I had some courses thru high school, but I wish I would've had more.

My partner Jasmine was recently expressing the outrageousness of the fact that ʻōlelo is not offered as a foreign language option in public schools. And she's absolutely correct. It's an official language of the state FFS!

HKT's breakdown is unassailable. I'm forgetting whether she mentions it in that video, but I think part of it is that white is the default race on the continent, and the use of the Hawaiian name instead of wypipo is a frequent reminder they're not the default here. That they are settlers makes it a little more awkward, especially given the fact that the overthrow of the Haw'n government was illegal and they're all occupying stolen land.

It is very revealing to talk to transplants about those politics. Military families are notorious for backward views about US sovereignty over Hawaii. Plenty of civilians I've met never get over the culture shock, and leave after a year or two. And plenty do lots of reading and get a well-rounded understanding of local history and politics. (There's a TON of great Hawaiiana literature available, and it makes me proud when I think about how many good writers have struggled to stay here and contribute to that body of work.)

South Park's Hawaii episode nailed a common settler haole type pretty well, ya? The deeper psychology is kind of hard to explain... There's a clinging-on to notions of paradise and, and I think that settlers who believe they truly belong here necessarily must disavow (or just remain ignorant of) the darker parts of this place's history and their problematic part in it. They latch on to an outrigger paddling team or (cooler IMO) hālau hula, and overidentify with these "tribes" in search of authentic belonging. Or they don't, and function shittily as permanent tourists who drink chi-chis day and night until they eventually croak.

Classic: Polynesian acceptance of a liminal gender (māhū), aikāne relationships that "held no stigmatism to the persons ʻano (one's nature or character)"

Dud: Christian missionaries began arriving in Hawaii in the 19th century, soon enacted strict sodomy laws

I can't remember if it was required that I take a Hawaiian studies course at UHH or if I just happened to take one. Theatre & Psychology did not require it, but I did want to take the Hawaiian Kingdom class for History.

Is Hawaiian language not offered at schools near you, davey? The school I work at, as well as most (if not all) of the high schools on my island offer it as one of the languages students can take, either through the school itself, or through a partnership with the Univeristy of Hawai'i system (mostly for the smaller schools, I believe). My HS required 2 years of Hawaiian. At elementary & intermediate levels, a lot of it is integrated as part of core subjects. Hell, there were many words that I didn't realize were Hawaiian or pidgin growing up because that was all I ever learned from home/at school. I'm lucky in that sense that my use of pidgin was never frowned upon, until I went to HS.

I definitely think you're right when it comes to how people who move here, especially those who are non-native/Asian/Pacific Islander, can feel very much like the "other" in a way that I do when I go to the mainland (I will admit here that it is something that really shakes me, and every time I go to the mainland, I take my Hawaiian flag with me as sort of a security blanket of sorts). I have been lucky in that the people I have come to know through that have been more understanding of the intricacies of being part of the community here. They all learned quickly that living here does not make you Hawaiian, nor does it allow you to claim those sorts of ties or rights to the land as perhaps someone would otherwise. I imagine that living in a bigger city or more "tourist" heavy area (Waikiki, Kona, Lahaina, etc.) probably makes it easier to distance yourself from the history of the respective place. I am grateful to the Hawaiian Renaissance for encouraging more people to engage in scholarship about Hawaiian culture and to pass down the history & practices. Every so often, my grandpa will recall the days when he was growing up in Hōnaunau, when the mindset was more about adapting to the Western ways and assimilation. I'm thankful that is no longer the case, and even more thankful that he is still with me to tell me about those experiences. He has definitely helped me realize how lucky I am to live in Hawai'i now, as a Hawaiian, with so many more resources available to me to learn from.

The volcanic eruption in 2018 saw a sort of mini-exodus of people who were kind of of that "permanent tourist" mindset from BI. Many of them decided to build in Leilani Estates, and couldn't get insured, because the area is still considered to be too high-risk and too close to Kīlauea. I did feel bad for many, because they lost almost everything, and could not get any sort of compensation. Many had to move back to their families on the mainland.

I think we're lucky here on BI in that we don't encounter too many people that try to claim this culture as their own (at least, I haven't encountered many), though there are a decent amount of people that will give themselves Hawaiian names upon living here for a few years. I don't know how much I can judge that, though, considering I was never given the traditional Hawaiian middle name, and as such, have only identified my Hawaiian family name when it's come up.

Our friends (O'ahu only mind you) are:

2 Hawaiians (relocated from Maui country for work)
5 yonsei (originally from Japan/Okinawa)
1 japanese immigrant married to 1 of the above
2 ethnic chinese
2 ethnic filipino
then a bunch of mixed folks

it's kind of sad that only 2 natives out of that pretty big crew but they are all super tight despite being stretched from Waipahu all the way around to Kaneohe.

My (terribly) education of Hawaiian culture was NOT visiting my grandparents who lived in Kauai for most of the 80s, but probably these 3 films:

+ North Shore (1987) which introduced the Hui/locals-only culture/respect, drop-in etiquette... and not much else predictably. Problematic.
+ Picture Bride (1994) which detailed the colonial/expansion of cane plantation-era Hawaii, the mass-migration of global culture (portuguese, british, japanese, chinese, filipino, et al) to the islands, the pidgin that was produced by that mix of cultures, the loneliness of farmers looking for love from their home countries, the women who were shipped abroad to meet those men... it's not a great film but it's much, much better than North Shore. Also I think it's Mifune's last role iirc.
+ The Ride (2003) this is maybe as bad as North Shore but definitely less problematic. I should mention I'd been traveling to Hawaii for a while by the time I'd seen this and it's a (don't laugh) time travel surf film but it has a good message and is much more sensitive to native causes and beliefs.

But when davey wrote this:

They latch on to an outrigger paddling team or (cooler IMO) hālau hula, and overidentify with these "tribes" in search of authentic belonging.

it stung because I would probably be the equivalent of tourist-enthusiasts of Bla Pahunini, Led Kaapana (and maybe even Ma'oli haha).

All that said, I'm an obvious outsider but davey's posting of Kapaemahu showed me something incredibly deep smack dab in the middle of tourist ground-zero. And hourspass' posts are incredibly educational. Thank you both for posting.

Hey Al, actually I think that remark was a bit snide. I wrote that rashly and I'd like to apologize and walk it back because it is not quite correct.

It's so important for people to engage with Hawaiian culture and help perpetuate it—perhaps especially so for transplants, who have less of a rightful claim to be here. Music and hula are great for that. Paddling is cool, too. It's rooted in Polynesia and it brings tons of people of all ethnicities together in the teams formed and at the regattas.

Building a deep connection with a culture other than your own is a very good thing. I don't want to dis it, and I didn't mean to suggest that people who weren't born here can't have a life here that's pono. And it's definitely possible to build a kind of local identity, even as a haole (or whatever non-Hawaiian ethnicity) transplant.

Expatriating (we consider Hawaii like a foreign country, ya?) changes you in profound ways. I think the right to identify with an adopted culture scales with the individual's efforts to learn about it, integrate with it, study its languages and/or participate in its practices. And shit, I'd be lying if I said my record's great in that regard! That's part of why I don't think I'll ever consider myself a true "local." Also, I think it's kind of like Texas, where if you weren't born there, people don't consider you a 100% Real Texan®.

If overidentification really is a thing, then probably it's much narrower than how I described it above. It's more like when people who just moved here and started learning how to surf call themselves local, which is pretty common.

Racial politics in Hawaii are very complicated. Everyone here who's not of native descent—even people with many generations of family on the island—are settlers. Native bloodlines have thinned out severely through extensive race mixing over the generations, which raises the question of who is really native Hawaiian. Many of my multiracial friends who have just a little Hawaiian ancestry at some point in their lives begin to identify as Hawaiian. I used to be cynical about that, maybe because it's a privilege to have that choice, but I came reject any ideas about needing certain blood quanta to qualify as "Hawaiian." The native culture was decimated by colonialists and missionaries, and it's encouraging to see people strive to salvage it, regardless of their genetic makeup. There's been a big movement over the last couple years to revive Hawaiian practices and languages. It's been wonderful to witness.

XP to hourspass:

Jasmine was telling me that few, if any, of O‘ahu public schools offer Hawaiian language courses. I wonder how true that is. It definitely wasn't an option for her at McKinley HS.

Incidentally, there's currently a big controversy over changing that school's name back to its original name, Honolulu High School. On campus there's a huge statue of McKinley holding the annexation "treaty," which is galling because the annexation was not legitimate under the law. Jasmine's been campaigning for the statue's removal for quite a while. The teacher's union and more woke ppl support the change, but many alumni and public figures are making specious arguments and clinging to the current name. The bill to change it was just deferred, I hope it eventually passes.

I get similar culture shock when I visit the lower 48. Now that I've lived here for most of my life, it feels weird to go places on the continent that are predominantly white, even though I'm haole as shit! I like white people just fine, I'm used to the diversity on display here at home. I don't get this feeling when I visit Europe, heh, maybe because I'm obviously a foreigner there.

Being a numerical minority has been humbling and without a doubt has made me a better person. Building friendships with people from numerous ethnic backgrounds I'd never have encountered if I had stayed anywhere else in the US has greatly enriched my life.

To Jersey Al: I'm glad that anything I said was informative; I've lived in Hawai'i for my entire life, and I consider myself very lucky to have done so. On the flip side, there were many things that I didn't understand or didn't realize still existed until HS (which was mid 2000s for me, graduated in 2007). The effects of plantation era are still pretty evident, not only through the generations that came after, but just by the structures still standing! There aren't as many places left, but it is very cool to get see parts of history more or less the same way my dad did, and his dad before him.

To add to what davey said, there is nothing wrong with trying to connect to a different culture, and I appreciate anyone who has a desire to learn about the history! However, there are some people who get a little too carried away, and decide to give themselves "Hawaiian" names, to seem more local, or try to obscure the fact that they were originally from somewhere else. These are some people I have a hard time getting along with, because they tend to gatekeep more, which I can only assume is a defense mechanism to help them feel more legitimate. I'm really not sure on that, though.

I'm always hesitant to talk too much about ethnic identity in regards to Hawai'i, because "local" really just means that you are from here, but to some, carries an implication of being able to identify as Hawaiian. A little bit more about my background, which maybe explains why I am so late to the party, so to speak: I've obliquely referred to my high school experience to try not to name drop, but I went to KS. I think this colored my identity in the sense that, throughout high school, since everyone was Hawaiian, everyone sought to identify as another culture as well, from another part of their ethnic background: Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, German, Irish, Korean, Filipino, Tongan, Samoan, etc. That kind of came with growing up in Hawai'i; having that multicultural perspective was normal, especially because it was VERY rare to find someone who was "pure" Hawaiian! However, there was a weird sort of...competitiveness that got tied into it as well.
I bring this up, because of the concept of "blood quantum" that I saw mentioned as well. I'm only 1/8th Hawaiian, and while I was growing up, my mom was always concerned about if I would have "enough Hawaiian" to qualify for things; admission to KS and their programs, ability to apply for Hawaiian Homelands, etc. Many programs (though not all) have since done away with those sorts of requirements, as long as the genealogy can be traced back to the last full-blooded Hawaiian ancestor. Though this also could have since changed, since it has been quite a while since I was required to provide documentation (having proof of going to KS kind of makes other organizations sort of hand wave you through, since if you can prove it to Bishop Estates, you're good).

That sense of having to "prove" yourself, as a Hawaiian, is something that I know a lot of people in my generation struggle with, myself included. I still do it, sometimes, when I feel like my "local" identity is in question. It's something I slip into when I'm on the mainland, and I feel too far away or disconnected. The pidgin comes out STRONG when I get drunk, and only recently did I realize that honestly, pidgin was my first language, more than standard English.
As I've gotten older, I've become more vocal about my ethnic background, and less concerned about "how much" of each ethnicity I am (to be clear, I'm 1/8 Hawaiian/Korean, 1/4 Portuguese, 1/2 Japanese-ish; we're not sure if it is just Japanese, or if there's some Okinawan somewhere in there also). I never had any real problems identifying and connecting with each background, and I am truly lucky to have been raised with that cultural pride. However, it's so funny how on the mainland, it's such a weird concept for other people. I've had people think I'm lying. I've had people not believe that someone could be ethnically Hawaiian. I've heard people claim that they are Hawaiian because they lived there for a few years. It's something I try to talk people through more now than I did before, rather than my initial reactions of defensiveness.

davey: Things are very different from when I was younger; by the time I was in high school, at least the bigger high schools on my island offered Hawaiian as a foreign language. The transition for O'ahu is probably more rough, considering the much more massive population, as well as the population skew, and educational programming; UH-Hilo's Hawaiian language/studies program has more of an ability to do that outreach, since there are far fewer schools here than over there. I'm not too familiar, but most of my friends who grew up on O'ahu, either went to KS, St. Louis (I know, I know; I promise that I was a public school kid throughout elementary and intermediate!), or Campbell.

I'm not surprised that they deferred the bill, unfortunately; I think there's a weird trend of preserving "history" at the expense of culture. Plus, there is probably a much more considerable split as far as views on annexation over on O'ahu than there is on my island. Not sure how much that may or may not contribute. Just a theory.

Anyway, sorry for the extremely long post; I have very complicated feelings on Hawai'i, which are sometimes hard to articulate since I've never lived anywhere else.

Excellent extremely long post/ Ethnicity and racial politics in Hawaiʻi is dissertation-length subject, there's so much to unpack.

What a clip

The US banned Hawaiian language, poisos our water, devastated our universal healthcare, overthrew our country, & illegally occupies Hawaii to this day. My mother's hands were broken for speaking Hawaiian in school. The US is not a beacon, but the destroyer of independence. #July4 pic.twitter.com/Qh2Gomfncb

— Silver Spook (@SilverSpookGuy) July 4, 2022

Goddamn that video that davey posted still hitting hard, esp. in light of Palestine/Gaza events.

Nephew is graduating UHM next month so need to pop over for a quick trip. Any cultural under-the-radar events happening 12/13-19?

Also I never replied to hourspass' amazing post... but respect. Mahalos for that.

OH! Yerac still in town or...?