My Life as an Alien Invader

And all the Oversimplified Gists

Before I met my husband or moved to the Kingdom of Hawai’i, my knowledge about it was rooted in the gifts my grandparents would bring back from their visits: the touristy plastic lei and the “hula” girl doll that rocked back and forth decorated in the grass skirt and coconut bra. I knew it was really far away and that my grandparents had to take an airplane to visit. My young brain understood it by the exotic perpetuation of stereotypes reflected in the media. I remember Magnum PI (the Tom Selleck version), the Brady Bunch visiting Hawaii, and Saved By the Bell: Hawaiian Style, for instance. These stereotypes shaped my understanding about Hawaiʻi. 

The first time I ever visited, technically, I didn’t journey here as a  tourist. Instead, I visited Hawaiʻi as a guest of my boyfriend to stay with his family. Though he took me to see some “touristy” things, I got to experience Hawai’i immersed in the reality of living and working in this place. After getting married to that boyfriend, I moved here, but it didn’t connect that I was moving to a place illegally occupied by the United States. Truthfully, in 1997, I didn’t think much about it at all. I had just married my Hawaiian husband, who I just assumed lived in the fiftieth “state”. It had only been 100 years earlier that Hawaiʻi’s Queen Lilioukalani was held prisoner in her own home and forced to sign a “treaty” which eventually led to Hawaiʻi’s annexation as a US Territory in 1898 and was ratified as a “state” in 1959. 

But this isn’t what we’re taught about Hawaiʻi on the mainland.

The oversimplified gist of those events is that a group of white, American businessmen descended from the white, American missionaries, who settled in the kingdom—in order to protect their business interests—leaned heavily on the queen to sign control of the kingdom over to the American government. When she refused to kowtow to their demands, she was seized and held prisoner in her own home until she signed the “treaty”. There are a ton of books written out there about it by people much more knowledgeable than me [and if you're interested, I would highly recommend starting with Queen Lilioukalani’s journal Hawaiʻi’s Story (1990)].

Unfortunately, there are more people like that 1997 version of me. Many people in the contiguous United States are unaware of the political history of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi—it’s geographic isolation is just one reason it might not show up in a US history lesson, but let’s be real, that isn’t the only reason. I didn’t learn about it in school. Considering my own education in a rural area of Oregon, I barely learned about the native First Nation people indigenous to my own area (which I now know to be the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin Tribes). My education about nonwhites (and keep in mind this was the late 1970s and 1980s—I graduated from high school in 1992) was filled with what I know now to be unbalanced content that perpetuated all the stereotypes, reinforced white bias, and the heroic propaganda of the Mein Kampf . ..  oops, I mean, US History textbooks: Colonialism? What is that? Like settling the first 13 colonies to get away from religious persecution? Here’s the definition: Colonialism is when a country sends settlers to a place and establishes political and cultural control over it. So those missionaries that turned into land holders that turned into business men pushing their own religious and political agenda onto the indigenous population. Yeah. Colonialism. 

I had this epiphany the other day that colonizers are like invading aliens. Now, please don’t align my use of the word “alien” with the way the United States right-wing has used the term to identify undocumented people trying to seek asylum and better conditions in the US. Not the same thing. My use of the word alien should conjure more of the War of the World sucking up human bodies as fuel connotation. And we love those movies right? Mars Attacks!, The Edge of Tomorrow, Independence Day, A Quiet Place to name a few. Each of these stories offer the premise that the human world is being infiltrated by an extraterrestrial, alien species bent on colonizing the planet (stealing resources, but same difference) and the people rise up and heroically fight against the monsters. 

You see the irony right? 

But know that this isn’t an essay on white guilt, but instead an acknowledgement of the reality of the state of things in Hawaiʻi. Nor is it an essay meant to perpetuate a xenophobic ideology. I wanted to offer a perspective of someone outside that indigenous perspective who IS the alien invader—albeit a welcome one, because there is power in sharing the truth of things. I am not Hawaiian. I’m a guest on this land (ʻāina), and it’s very important that I understand it, just as I hope I would of any place I visit. 

Just as I hope that you, too, would understand Hawaiʻi on a deeper level when you visit.

I’m sorry to say there is no one more entitled than a tourist. On one hand, they’ve spent a lot of money on a “dream vacation” so they want their idealized dream, but on the other, they are occupying someone’s home where that dream isn’t real. A common thing I always hear from tourists is: People should be happy we visit. Tourism creates jobs and puts money in the economy. Okay. Get that, but let’s take a closer look. If you were to just take in the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority data, you’d think tourism makes Hawaiʻi a boomtown. But just like my oversimplified gist earlier, that’s an oversimplified argument filled with unaccounted for nuance and context.  

Here are some numbers for you:

  • The median income in Hawai’i is around $37,000.

  • The cost of living in Hawaii—in order to make ends meet—is listed at *$70,000 *though other sites have cited “to be happy in Hawai’i,” a household would need to bring in $195,000 (this is more reflective of an income with the ability to contribute to savings and retirement).

  • The median rent is $2,300 

  • The median home price is $810,000 (which with a 20% down means financing $648,000) Do the math. Even making the $70,000 dollars isn’t going to get you a home. 

  • Hawaiʻi’s minimum wage: a whopping $12.00/hour.

  • The average tourism job starts at $12 - $17/ hour. And you know . . . come on, you know… most corporations aren’t hiring workers full-time in order to avoid paying benefits, so people are working double, triple jobs to afford living and health care.

Those abysmal numbers highlight the average means for a resident of Hawaiʻi. While the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority cites collecting upwards of $2.6 billion dollars in tax revenue, this money doesn’t impact the day-to-day lives of the average person in Hawaiʻi struggling to make ends meet. Then their resources (water, sewage, air quality, sea quality, food costs, housing costs)  are tapped by the massive influx of invaders—the tourist—whose tourism dollars would have to be spent in Hawaiʻi owned business—Hawaiian owned shops, in Hawaiian owned restaurants, in Hawaiian owned boutique hotels, to actually benefit the people with their tourism money—but this isn’t the case. Most tourism dollars are spent supporting the conglomerates (chain hotels, chain restaurants, chain stores) who pay their workers minimum wage.

There’s the argument that assumes someone living in Hawaiʻi can find a job outside of tourism. Except it's a machine which means every family in Hawaiʻi is impacted by this industry. Even if the local population wanted to boycott tourism, they couldn’t. Do you think it’s the dream of those hula dancers to dance at the Hotel Luʻau? Case in point: my oldest child has a college degree and the only position that seems to be open after months of looking for full-time employment is a position at a hotel.

So here’s another oversimplified gist: tourists and non-Hawaiians accessing the land and resources are benefiting the bankroll of the businessmen. And those businesses are protecting their business interests—not aligned with Hawaiian ideals—and leaning heavily on the working-class of local and indigenous people who live here, who benefit very little in the day-to-day of their lives. I know Hawaiians have a lot more to say on this topic and I won’t presume to speak for them, but I know many who have gone so far as to say, “don’t come here without an invitation from someone who lives here.” If you think about it, that’s actually a great practice—that was my first visit to Hawaiʻi, remember? How much more do you appreciate and take care of a place when you visit knowing you’re guests of friends?

A few years ago—pre-2020—my husband and I had the opportunity to travel to Europe on a river cruise down the Danube. One stop in particular sticks out in my mind. It was in a small river village in Austria, and it was clear that the village was reliant on tourist dollars, but also that there was more to the town than what we could see in the six or seven hours of our stop. Most of the tour group—fifty or sixty of us—decided to go to a local winery. We sat in the tasting room and listened to the vintner tell us about his products, then we were given samples of the wine. It was a picturesque location vibrant with local flare. What stood out to me, however, was the way several members of our American group were behaving. They were loud, interrupted the man speaking, laughed loudly (and since there was a language barrier, one might assume they were being laughed at). I was mortified by their behavior, so ashamed.

Having been in Hawaiʻi now for nearly thirty years, I have witnessed this kind of behavior by alien invaders. The trash left on beaches, the entitled attitude about space because “do you know how much I paid for this vacation?”, the lack of regard for the real people taking care of them in service jobs. One time my husband and I took my visiting mother for breakfast on the beach. When we arrived at the restaurant, my husband approached the host podium to get on the list for seating when a tourist looked him up and down, then sneered as she said, “I was here, first,” to which my mother replied, “I think he’s been here longer.” The tourist didn’t get it.

And that is where the problem lies. Invaders and occupiers take. And even in spite of that, Hawaiian culture is all about hospitality and generosity. Nana Veary, Hawaiian spiritualist wrote in Change We Must, My Spiritual Journey (1989) about a lesson she learned as a young girl when her grandmother invited a stranger to come in and dine. She didn’t understand why her grandmother would feed him to which her grandmother replied in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, “I want you to remember these words for as long as you live, and never forget them. I was not feeding the man; I was entertaining the spirit of God within him.” 

That gracious hospitality still exists in Hawaiʻi and is inspiring. I would argue that for that generosity to continue, there needs to be a reciprocal nature to the host-tourist relationship. Do you show up at your friend’s house empty handed? Your parent’s house? What about the brand new neighbors to the neighborhood? So here’s some food for thought: As an alien invader… ah hem…I mean as a tourist to Hawaiʻi (or any other place for that matter) what are you giving to the space that you occupy? Are you bringing anything other than your entitlement and your trash? Take some time and learn about the real place, the home, the land you’ll be occupying rather than fetishizing it and snagging the cheap, plastic hula doll you’ll stick to your car dash so you remember lying on Waikiki Beach that one week that one summer. 

You can find this post and others on my SubStack.

How I Got to Hawaiʻi, My Hawaiʻi Story

In Honor of Pacific IslanDER Heritage Month

There are quite a few stories about people coming to Hawaiʻi to visit, then never leaving. Hawaiʻi is an amazing place, so I can understand the attraction (though I do have mixed feelings about it). My story, however, is a little different…

When I was eighteen, I went off to college. Ah hem. Okay fine. I didn’t even leave my hometown. I enrolled at my local college, started going to classes, and was well on my way to flunking out—yeah. I had no idea why I was there— when I met a guy. In hindsight, that exact reason was probably why I was initially there (which is a completely different story). His name was Vince, he played football for our college, and he was *Hawaiian from **Hawaiʻi. 

*Quick lesson No. 1: I’m from Oregon. And as with most states in the United States, we tack on an  -ian at the end of the world to indicate our state of origin. I was born and raised an Oregonian, for example. The same isn’t true for Hawaiʻi. People who live in Hawaiʻi aren’t indicatively Hawaiian, even those who were born and raised here. Hawaiians are a native group of people who are indigenous to Hawaiʻi. It’s disrespectful, then, to say that just because I’m from Hawaiʻi that I’m Hawaiian. I am not. The proper term would be to say I am “local”. For an interesting take on the origin of being a “local” in Hawaiʻi pick up John Rosa’s book: Local Story: the Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History.

*Quick lesson No. 2: I used to pronounce Hawaii as (Hah-why-ee). That, my friends, is incorrect. The correct way to pronounce this amazing place is Hawaiʻi (Huh-vī-ee—making sure that second sound—vī—is short and sturdy).

Long story short, after Vince and I dated, eventually making things exclusive, the school we were attending dropped the football program. Vince decided to transfer to play football for another school and suggested I transfer with him. I may not have known why I was in school yet, but I did like the guy. Why not? So off we went.

I did finally figure out why I was in school—majored in English—and we continued dating while we went to school. Our relationship turned into the five-year variety, and we got married in 1997. And then I moved to Hawaiʻi (did you say it right?) that same year. Married for nearly 26 years now, I’ve lived in Hawaiʻi longer than I lived in Oregon. I am so grateful to call Hawaiʻi home.

(You can find this post on Substack, here.)


You Can Go Home Again

You know that party question: would you go back to high school? It often creates an either-or dichotomy: Hell no! Or Absofuckinlutely! For the last eight weeks, I went back to high school. Okay, not as a student, but rather as a long-term substitute teaching English to 9th grade students. Given I taught English for over twenty years, this wasn’t a stretch, but after nearly three years outside of a traditional classroom working instead as a full-time author, it was a refresher in all things teen and work life. This, my friends, is what I learned returning to the classroom.

First, kids are kids no matter the year. Granted, the 13-and-14-year-old students I was attempting to impart wisdom about Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet were eleven when they were forced home for Covid. So their sixth-and-seventh-grade years (a primary time in learning communication skills) were spent behind computer screens (and believe me it showed). I got them journals to decorate and make their own and each class we spent writing for the first ten minutes. Then—to practice our social skills—we “turned and talked” and like any teen, they fell right into that activity. It took a bit of time to get them to share with one another, but after a week or so, it began to feel safe, normal even. Teens are awesome people. They’re funny, they’re pragmatic, they’re focused (on what they’re interested in), and like all people, they're social. 

Sometimes I get so far into my head, I forget the socialization part of life. I’m a self-professed introvert. I am content in my home, in the space I’ve made for myself, in the routine that I’ve created to address my work (writing, editing, book life, and taking care of the dogs and cats). I’m content to text with my friends and set the phone down. This isn’t a knock on my friends or human interaction in general, just a truth about my identity. I am content being alone. But walking into the classroom and observing the students reminded me how important socialization is. How critical it is to interact with others in order to grow my perspective, challenge my norms, push me outside of the comfort zone. I’m better for it. Just like the students, I have to make time to “turn and talk”.

“Make the time to ‘turn and talk’.”
— Cami Walters-Nihipali

Second, I remembered immediately how much mental capacity is necessary to be a teacher. Goodness gracious. There’s creative work of designing the curriculum and making sure it’s got enough critical-thinking meat as well as age-appropriate relevance. Then there’s the creativity in doing the same for each class-period lesson. Then there’s the all-encompassing act of assessment, whether it's the informal observation in the classroom, the formative assignments, or the summative tasks to showcase skill growth, a teacher is always “on” both inside and outside of the classroom, and it’s exhausting. From the classroom management, to the planning and assessment for each learner, to the research—and while I didn’t have to attend all those meetings—there are all those meetings that really have nothing to do with the day-to-day job, but the bigger picture of teaching and learning. 

I had a conversation with one of my former colleagues (yes, this is the school where I used to work full time before leaving to write full time) who expressed the day-to-day struggle. Having been teaching for fifteen years, *they indicated a sense of bone-weary exhaustion. Is it a wonder? The amount of mental capacity it takes to do the job coupled with the struggle of external perception that “teachers don’t do enough” along with administrations who add to the plate for “accountability” is not only disheartening, but drains the well dry.

When I sit down at my writing desk everyday, I feel joy. The act of creating, of telling a story or sharing my thoughts, is fulfilling. I might be poor, but I am so content doing this work. And while that creativity does draw from the well, this is a choice I make each day. I’m accountable to myself, to my own perception of what’s going to build and present my best work. This conversation with my colleague reminded me how unfulfilled I felt as a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, there were absolute moments of fulfillment. That moment when all the work that went into that unit and specific lesson hit all the right notes, when I got that student essay that nailed it, when I had a real conversation with a student that helped them through something, or the plethora of moments with colleagues when we laughed and planned and continued through the struggle together. But overall, my mind was always thinking about writing. Makes sense—it was what I was born to do.  And that—time spent pursuing my passion—is so affirming.

“You canʻt ever go home again”
— Thomas Wolfe, novelist 1940

Finally, Thomas Wolfe in his 1940 novel by the same title wrote, “You can’t ever go home again.” I disagree with the sentiment. We need to go home again. It’s true that when we return home, we return with a new perspective, therefore we aren’t able to capture that experience with the sameness of our memories. It’s impossible because we are changed. New perspective allows you to see with new eyes, while at the same time grounding you to something familiar. Returning to my former school allowed me this renewal. I returned with three years of independent authorship and entrepreneurship added to my vitae, and while that impacted my experience of walking back into the classroom, being a teacher again offered me the familiar feeling of being good at something once more when authorship doesn’t provide that immediate feedback. 

As I was standing in the hallway greeting students as they passed, welcoming my students to the classroom, one of the vice principals walked past. It was my last official day in the classroom, and we exchanged chatter about it. *They continued on, but then stopped and backtracked toward me once more. “I wanted to tell you,” they started and expounded about a teacher group I was a part of with them before I left. We reminisced about the power of that group, and the change we were able to enact because of our work. Then they said, “All that to say, you made a big difference in our school. Thank you.”

I don’t take compliments well. Never have (Iʻm sure there’s a bunch of psychology behind this), and I felt speechless. It was such a nice thing to say, and this person didn’t have to backtrack to offer it to me. I walked into the classroom, pondering it. I think perhaps I even attempted to discount it, but it couldn’t be dismissed. I had to take that sweet sentiment and allow it to bolster me. And it did. It reminded me that risk-taking for the greater good is a very important part of my identity.  So perhaps you can’t go home again unchanged, but home often has a way of reaffirming ourselves and strengthening our purpose.

So, friends, I return to my writing desk full time, surrounded by my furry co-workers—Ruby, Haupia, Cheese, and Happy—ready to face the quiet of my writing life, excited to face it, and grateful for having taken the time away to refill the well in a different capacity. 


A heads up:

I will be moving over to SubStack for additional content. While you’ll still have access to this weekly blog, perhaps consider subscribing to my substack for up-to-date news and additional writing excerpts meant to entertain.

*They denotes a singular person and is used to protect their identity.

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April Challenge: Update No. 4

It’s the final update for the April Challenge. There’s good news and bad news.

I’ll start with the bad: I didn’t write everyday.

I have learned this month that an important part of my writing process is the necessity to step away and allow the story to rest while the flavors meld. It reminds me a bit of that space between a finished draft and a revision. When I attempt to force it, I mess things up—like globbing on too much makeup— and then have to do a lot of rewriting. When I’m patient, however, I’m able to approach the writing with clear understanding and perspective. So this month, those goose egg days were time spent away, but time thinking things through.

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So, the good news is that this first draft is complete even if it’s only bones. Better yet, I have a sense of how to revise! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

I must share some credit for this breakthrough. My wonderful writer friends, Brandann R. Hill-Mann, author of The Hole in the World series, and Stephanie Keesey-Phelan were gracious enough to read the first act for me. Brandann offered me this golden nugget: “What would happen if this story occurred in a white room, removing the setting?” The obvious outcome is that if you can remove the story to a white room and the story essentially remains the same, the setting either doesn’t matter OR the setting isn’t working hard enough to help tell the story.

Lightbulb moment!

I realized while I could remove this story to a new setting and still have a story, that wasn’t my problem. I’ve written strong characters, and one of my strengths as a writer is being able to write character driven narrative, but plot driven narrative, which is important to fantasy as a category, is sorely lacking. My problem was that I hadn’t weaved the setting enough into the conflict to support the plot driven element.

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So dear friends, I’m smiling as I finish out this April Challenge, because I have a draft, and I have a sense of which way is forward. THAT is exactly what I’d hoped to achieve. Time to set this book aside for several weeks, work on that setting and conflict, then it’s time to revise.

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