The Value of Hawaii: Culture, Economy, and Tourism

Introduction

Hawaiʻi entered its status as an American state under somewhat controversial and unusual circumstances roughly fifty years ago. Many of the economic and social problems the state currently experiences have been ascribed to its difficult relationship with the United States and to the specific conditions surrounding its integration. In The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future, edited by Craig Howes and Jon Osorio (2010), the various contributors offer highly divergent viewpoints on the problems facing Hawaiʻi, as well as potential solutions to those problems.

What unites these authors is a basic understanding that, to function effectively in the future, it is vital to remember the past and apply its lessons — whether those lessons indicate the need for change or the value of retaining previously effective ways of thought and management. Three essays in particular touch on important paradigms that must shift before Hawaiʻi — both as a U.S. state and as a distinct cultural entity — can hope to resolve its myriad problems, problems that are uniquely tied to its nature as an island and as a culture. The essays by Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio, Sumner La Croix, and Ramsay Remigius Mahealani Taum raise questions and offer solutions regarding Hawaiian culture, the state's economy, and its tourist industry, together promoting a sense of hope that the state can indeed address its difficulties.

Hawaiian Culture and the Case for Indigenous Values

The essay by Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio, entitled "Hawaiian Issues," focuses on the state's early history as a destination for Polynesian voyagers. Osorio briefly traces Hawaiʻi's development in terms of culture and governance up to the point at which the United States claimed it as a state — an act the author regards as both unfair and illegal.

The essay is not, however, a simple diatribe against the United States, nor a straightforward call to arms for Hawaiians to resist integration. Although there is certainly a conceptual tension between descriptions of native, traditional Hawaiian culture and the way the United States as a whole operates, Osorio nonetheless suggests that Hawaiians focus on remembering the values upon which their culture is based, while calling upon corporations to incorporate those values into a shared value system that would support the conservation of land. He further argues that such integration would contribute to solutions for a range of social and economic problems, including the widening gap between rich and poor, the current model of tourism, and the management of land. What is most striking about this essay is that the author concentrates on existing positive paradigms within the state and suggests they be used as a foundation for social reform, upon which economic and educational reform can also be built.

Osorio goes on to examine the paradigm known as the Hawaiian sovereignty movement in greater detail. He takes care to distinguish the separate agendas of the United States — with its increasingly hollow professions about civil rights, equal opportunity, and respect for property — from those of the Hawaiian movement, which has raised public awareness of how the initial takeover of the state and the subsequent treatment of its people have affected Hawaiian culture and cultural life. The root of the problem, as Osorio sees it, is the fundamental divide between the native, inclusive culture of Hawaiʻi and the exclusive, economically driven paradigms of the United States and its powerful corporations. The Hawaiian movement, he believes, can offer solutions by encouraging cultures to learn from each other rather than to dominate or subordinate one another.

Economic Infrastructure: Education and Regulatory Reform

Sumner La Croix's essay, titled simply "The Economy," takes a somewhat less idealistic approach than Osorio's. La Croix instead focuses on the specific infrastructure challenges the state faces in terms of its basic economic building blocks. He identifies two primary issues that have suppressed the state's economic growth: education and Hawaiʻi's legal and regulatory framework.

On education, La Croix examines the way in which the school system currently produces outcomes that fall far short of the state's economic needs. Children receive a substandard education, which results in poor job prospects and low university admission numbers. At the same time, students who do earn university degrees find that available employment does not offer compensation commensurate with their qualifications. This situation is attributed to a failure of education policy to incentivize educators to provide students with the best possible learning opportunities, as well as to a failure of policymakers to understand the downstream effects of policy changes — changes that are rarely subjected to thorough discussion or investigation.

The same systemic weakness, La Croix argues, afflicts Hawaiʻi's legal and regulatory framework, which in many areas is outdated and no longer reflective of current economic and social realities. One particularly important gap is the absence of a robust regulatory framework for the conservation and management of the state's natural resources. In this respect, La Croix echoes Osorio, who highlights the lack of coherent land management as a product of insufficient understanding of how to manage such resources. Where Osorio calls for an integrated approach involving the native community and U.S. policymakers, La Croix adds that modern systems of regulation and management are essential to support that integration. It is, he concludes, in the interest of both Hawaiʻi and the United States that sustainable, long-term land use in the state be actively promoted.

Conclusion: Hope and the Path Forward

In the same way, all the essays in the book highlight the effect of Hawaiʻi's integration as a U.S. state on its local culture, economy, and environment. Although many of these effects are depicted as generally negative, there is also a sense of hope in the possibility of integrating corporate business with a local movement toward greater authenticity and inclusivity.

Perhaps it is fitting to close with one of the opening statements in the book, offered by Tom Coffman: in a survey of all fifty American states, Hawaiians ranked themselves at the top of the list in terms of general well-being. In other words, Hawaiians tend to be more content with their lives than residents of any other state. This in itself is an excellent starting point for addressing the state's challenges in education, economy, and the stewardship of its cultural and natural resources. The generally positive outlook of the Hawaiian people brings a sense of hope that there is indeed a remedy for the current difficulties — one rooted, as all three essayists suggest, in a clear-eyed understanding of the past.

Reference

Howes, C., & Osorio, J. (2010). The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the past, shaping the future. University of Hawaii Press.