Just got back from 17 days on Big Island/Maui/Kaua’i/Oahu. Great beaches, scenery, food, and the folks were generally nice. BUT , my girlfriend and I encountered quite a lot of ‘stink-eye’. Also, many of the 18-20-something’s working in the shops/stores/restaurants had serious cases of slack-jaw (we got blank stares when asking simple questions) And, finally, I’ve never seen so much evidence of break-ins (broken glass scattered around many of the trail heads) What do the locals REALLY think about us tourists?
yawndave
We visited in August of '02.
Before we went to Hawaii (Big Island, Oahu, Kauai) we did a little research, and we basically got the impression that tourists should be on the lookout for petty crime (such as rental car-break-ins). Also to be prepared for a bit of the ‘stink-eye’ you mentioned.
We were there for almost three weeks, did the touristy as well as off-the-beaten-path stuff, and not one thing happened.
I get the impression that the locals are less worried about tourists than new folks moving in…I know that people on Kauai are worried about their beautiful island becoming over-developed.
I do have a friend who, as a kid going to elementary school on Oahu, was regularly beaten up for being a haole. Other friends had luggage stolen right out of the trunk of their rental car, and still other friends had their condo burglarized.
So yeah, stuff can happen. (Of course, stuff can happen anywhere.)
Hawaii is one of the loveliest places I have ever seen. Having read about some of its sad history, I can understand some of the lingering tensions.
A friend of mine said this happened to her.
Okay, “haole”. Derogatory, or not derogatory? I mean, is it meant in the same way as some ignorant white people use “nigger”? Or is it meant like you would say, “He’s a Londoner.”?
I lived in Hawaii for 22 years. Yes, some locals can dislike tourists. When I visited in February of this year, I never locked my rental and kept it free of any valuables.
Haole is defenetly derogitory if it’s used in that way. White-skinned folks need to be able to adapt in a way as to not stick out too much or blend in too much.
I went to a birthday party for a deaf lady on Maui & she invited about 20 deaf people. I went up to one deaf guy & introduced myself & the first thing he said was he was gay, then the other deaf guys came up & said the same thing. Course, they were all kidding, except for one guy who really was gay. But they seemed nicer than deaf people on the mainland.
Haole can be derogatory, but it’s one of those words that depends on who’s saying it and how.
I never had any problems when I was stationed there, but neither was I a tourist. Hell, I used to go up to the north side of Kaena Point alone. At night. :eek: Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, but apparently That Is Just Not Done. No one told ME that, though.
Hmm, I was a White White kid with platinum blond hair. I went to Mountain View and Waikea elementary schools on the big island and never had any problems. I went to Washington Inter. and Kaimuki High on Oahu and never had any problems. Kaimuki had the second highest level of gang participation on the island at the time.
When I worked in the visitor industry (at an ABC store) both myself and all my coworkers were very nice and courteous. I don’t know why so many of the youngsters you encountered were surly. Perhaps it was that they were youngsters. With school ending and the tourist season really taking off a lot of students have taken summer jobs.
We do have a serious property crime problem though what with tourists being so easy to spot and almost always having lots of expensive things on them.
I like tourists. Unless you’re one of those who complain about how expensive everything is. Trust me, you’ll never get any sympathy from a local for that. We live with it, you’ll only have it for a few days. But most people I know think highly of tourists and will do quite a lot to help them if need be. And I live in Waikiki and am surrounded by them. I can’t really explain why you had so many problems other then kids these days.
Fern Forest-- I’m a haole kid, blonde hair, moved from mainland when I was 12 (so unable to talk pidgin, et al), junior high and high school in PAHOA in the 1980s (hi, neighbor!). Borderline living-hell, to varying degrees. Waikea was the school Pahoa haoles tried to get district exemption to go to. . . 
Things did improve with a little age-- by 12th grade things were merely awkward.
“Haole” can either be very derogatory or neutral, given the context.
Oh, I want to make it clear, though, that in general I think the locals in Hawaii are swell, once you get to know them. They have a legitimate set of gripes about mainland American and Asian cultural encroachment, and a complicated hybrid culture that is hard to penetrate, coupled with economic troubles on the outer islands. I’ve visited there a couple of times since I’ve been older and had a great time. Just. . . kids of a certain age and assholes of any background can be very difficult, no matter where you are, and there are a special set of pressures there.
I’m in Oahu right now, visiting my sister’s family. I’ve been here for a week, and the natives have been very polite and friendly. Of course, they’re pretty used to tourists out here, and I’m VERY obviously a tourist - my skin right now could be used to light a small town.
In fact, if I have any gripe against anyone, it’d be Mother Nature. The sun and ocean have combined in an Axis of Evil Nature to kill me.
Oh how small the islands are. That’s what my mom did with me and my sister butonly because she was going to UH Hilo and it was just easier for them to get us to and pickus up from school that way. I guess they had more after school activities too. I heard the area where I grew up (as you can tell by my name) is now a very bad place to live. The drug elements were beginning to move in when we moved out in the early 80s.
I used to work with a whole BUNCH of hawaiian people at a flight kitchen at Anchorage international (this was way back in the early 80s).
I could never understand how people from such a beautiful sunny place would want to move to this godforsaken iceland (okay, not really, but it’s no Hawaii), they said it was because it was nearly impossible to make a decent living, or to purchase a home in their own state (yeah, DISGUSTINGLY sad).
Anyway, my Hawaiian friends said that the origin of the word “haole” was this:
When the missionaries started visiting the islands (1800s???, my memory fails me) to spread the word of God, they were strongly puritanical of course and refused to share in the island tradition of meeting your fellow islanders with a kiss.
The islanders considered the kiss to be “sharing the breath of life”, thus those not sharing kisses were known as “haole” or “no breath”.
It came to mean “foreigner” and eventually to mean “white person,” it can be said in a sneering derogatory way, but generally it just means white person.
I can’t vouch for the other islands, but going to public school on Maui was definitely not a pleasant experience.
There were only about seven of us haole’s in the school of two thousand. I had rocks thrown at me every day, gangs of locals who hated me from the first day I stepped on campus, and was punched repeatedly in my fractured shoulder while wearing a sling.
Every one of the seven Haoles were treated the same. The only one who had it worse happened to be 6’5" in 9th grade and nearly albino (really).
Recently, a friend of my dads (white, but lived on the island for 30 years) was stabbed in the eye with a keave stick by a bunch of locals. Lost the eye, but thankfully, nothing else.
There are a lot of wonder people in Hawaii, but unfortunately, there is also a lot of class seperation and bitterness.
How much cost go Wahiawa, come back Waikiki?
Two dollah, I tink.
[sub]'course that’s been awhile. [/sub]
Most locals regard Caucasian tourists as just part of the scenery. They don’t have cameras going off nonstop like those funny Japanese tourists, but they’re mostly harmless, therefore mostly accepted.
Seriously, it’s a complicated answer, because of Hawaii’s history with Caucasian settlers and Hawaii’s distance to the Mainland. It’s true that not all of Hawaii is thrilled with Caucasian people. But for the vast, vast majority of Hawaii residents, Caucasians are regular people, just like you and me. In fact, I think most Hawaii people regard Caucasians in a positive light.
As for the slack-jaws, well, every state has its incompetents. Hawaii seems to have quite a few; my guess is some of my fellow kama’aina confuse laid-back with unresponsive. You’d think being in a tourist-based economy, Hawaii businesses would be more particular about their salesclerks and customer service representatives…
At any rate, please don’t take your experience as a typical encounter between Caucasians and Hawaii locals. There are a lot of good businesses there, and a lot of good people there. I hope your future experiences with Hawaii folk are better.