Don' wanna be no ugly Haoli

This is for Hawai%26#39;ian residents on this forum, especially Big Island, especially windward side,

Today on CNBC they featured a spotlight on Hawai%26#39;i as a good property investment. Leaving aside for a moment the advisability of taking the advice of television pundits, this struck a chord within me that I never imagined might need to be addressed... until now.

I grew up in the %26#39;50s and %26#39;60s in a small, semi-rural, semi-tourist Southern California community whose main ';industries'; were commercial flower growing and beach resorts. My friends in school were about forty percent descendents of Spanish Grandees and Pauma/Poway natives. Although their families mostly pre-dated ours, we white folks (disregarding that Spaniards are also ';white folks';) called them Mexicans, which held about as much racial importance to us as ';blondes'; or ';Lithuanians';. Mostly, they were Maria %26amp; Chuey, Hector %26amp; Juana. In other words, the attitude among people from different cultures was very similar to that found in Hawai%26#39;i... and nowhere else I%26#39;ve seen in America.

Northern San Diego County is pretty much Silicon Valley South, now. It wasn%26#39;t always so. Our town was rural. We had farming, and irrigation. And horses. And cattle. And, since this was the early %26#39;60s, we had Surfing and Tiki. If there is anywhere in the mainland United States that was more similar to Hawai%26#39;i I can%26#39;t imagine where it would be.

Except that it isn%26#39;t anymore, of course. Yes, I know; one gets older and the memories of childhood become more and more mythical. And nostalgia sure ain%26#39;t what it used to be!

But I%26#39;ve visited Hawai%26#39;i. Oahu. Maui. The Big Island. Especially the Big Island. Both sides. I LOVE the Big Island, and the part I love the most is Hilo. Tourists don%26#39;t like Hilo. It rains a lot. There are no resorts that a mainlander would be proud to say they were successful enough to have stayed at. No golf courses that only recognize celebrities. Houses that people like me would live in, inhabited by (I suspect) people like me.

I%26#39;m ';retired'; now. I use that word with a smile, since I%26#39;m not REALLY retired. ';Retired';, at least to me, means having saved up enough money that you can live the rest of your life on the interest from a pension or annuity, and you don%26#39;t have to work anymore. Well, I don%26#39;t have enough money for that. At least not yet. I have enough that, if I work hard trading securities, I can increase the value of my ';stake'; enough to match or exceed what I need to draw from it. It%26#39;s certainly work -- the same work a broker would do with other people%26#39;s money. But it%26#39;s work that can be done anywhere that an internet connection, a phone, and a post office can be found. Hilo is such a place. My lovely (and young) wife is a long way from retirment, but she is an Activities Coordinator in a retirement home, and also a licensed Certified Nursing Assistant. I doubt that finding a receptive retirement facility in Hawai%26#39;i will present much of a problem.

What MIGHT, and this is why I%26#39;m posting all this, is knowing what we need to know in order to begin our process of gaining acceptance into a Hawai%26#39;ian community. I can understand the feelings native Hawai%26#39;ians might feel toward newcomers from the mainland. Especially since the areas we%26#39;d feel most at home with are not known for being particularly outgoing and welcoming to strangers. We don%26#39;t want to be ';those Haolis up the street';. But we%26#39;re not ';church-y'; people and we%26#39;re not ';civic goodies';. We have consumed a lot of rum (and even more bourbon) and several cubic feet of hemp fumes in our lives, and although we are liberal in our political and social ideas we tend to be most comfortable with people for whom thing like that aren%26#39;t a problem. We%26#39;ve driven around through places like Hawai%26#39;ian Beachs and Paradise Park, and Glenwood and Volcano, and even some parts of Ocean View (which is a bit creepy), and the neighborhoods we saw are similar to those we%26#39;ve lived in.

If we became serious about grabbing this market bottom opportunity to buy a home on the BI, what would you suggest we do to help make our transition smooth and help us quickly get over the ';Haoli-isms'; we can%26#39;t help but bring with us?

Don' wanna be no ugly Haoli

Lesson #1: Haole, not haoli ;-)

Don' wanna be no ugly Haoli

TA doesn%26#39;t like subjects that are not travel related and I assume they will shut the door on this subject quickly. Check your private message box above in regards to the ';haole'; question.

I think the conventional wisdom is that transplants will never become ';local'; but in time you can become a good neighbor and have friends.

There is no Hawaii equivalent of the meaning of the Florida ';native'; (born in FL) and ';semi-native'; (raised in FL) license plates they used to have.

no matter where you go or what your skin color is, there will be bullies. when a few hawaiian guys brawl it%26#39;s just a bar fight, but when a few hawaiians brawl with haole it becomes racial and makes news. bullies of any race or whatever reason they give you are just stupid and got alot of brawn but no brain. too bad that the children copy what they see adults do.

if i was faced with verbal racial slurs, i would roll my eyes and go: ';yeah yeah yeah'; and not take it personal. they will need help some day and may ask you to use your lawnmower or to jumpstart their car. then you help them and everything is fine from then on. like the last poster said: be a good neighbor and you will make friends. love overcomes all kinds of obstacles.

Aloha981 ~

I have 2 good books for you to read before you move forward. ';So You Want to Live in Hawaii'; by Toni Polancy and ';Culture Shock - Hawaii'; by Brent Massey. I thought these were very helpful for us.

So you%26#39;re liberal %26amp; like rum? Heck, move nextdoor to us! :)

www.punaweb.org

is EXACTLY the forum for you!!!

Full of folks with the same plans of transitioning to Puna, in various stages, and the same questions, and some answers, and also frequented by locals and transplants of longer standing.

Re those hemp fumes, talk to the poster known as Beachboy, a haole who has lived on various islands for over 30 years and has some great stories.

The civic goodie persona IS the best way into the new place, and there are a number of ways to go at that to fit any and all philosophies ...