The president of the United States just announced that he has changed his permanent residence from New York to Florida. I will refrain from political comments because American politics has gone pupule, but howzabout I wrestle with something easier?
After a lifetime as a New Yorker, Donald Trump will become a Floridian when he moves to Florida. This is the same way a Vermonter becomes a Minnesotan when he relocates to Minnesota. These are fairly standard U.S. state identifiers — Oregonian, Georgian, Mainer — but you might be interested to know that in some other states, resident terms are quirkier. For example, if you live in Connecticut, you are a Connecticutter, in Michigan, a Michigander, in Wisconsin, a Wisconsinite, in Delaware, a Delawarean.
These are the kinds of fascinating tidbits that linger with me after 30 years of teaching English, and mahalo for the opportunity to show off.
Now what about Hawaii? If you’re a resident of the islands, are you a Hawaiian?
Some assume so, but all of us who’ve lived here long enough know that the answer is: Maybe yes, maybe no. We’re not trying to be funny, so perhaps we shouldn’t laugh when a 120 years after annexation, we see nonlocals and newcomers still misinformed about this.
I listened as a highly paid, well-known, longtime news anchor referred to Barack Obama on national television as a “Native Hawaiian.” Aue. I fell off my chair. And I just overheard someone who moved to our island a few months ago loudly and proudly proclaim that now with his boxes unpacked and golf clubs put away, he’s Hawaiian. Double aue. My head did a complete 360 degree rotation.
Here’s the skinny: On the continent, a resident is a Californian or a Texan or a Marylander. When you drive from one state to another and change residency, you can breezily go from being a Kansan to a Coloradoan to a Utahan. But this doesn’t apply to Hawaii, first of all because there’s no driving across state lines to get here. It’s true some of our island highways are named “interstates,” and whose lolo idea was that? Interstate H-1 … how can? I know it has something to do with federal funds, but let’s get real.
In the old days when people had to sail for weeks across the Pacific to come here, there was a sense that they were heading for an adventure, an unknown place, a foreign land! And sure enough when they arrived, they were greeted in another language and offered poi and ‘opihi. Nowadays after a five-hour plane ride, the only thing unfamiliar might be fragrant air and sticky humidity. Even those who cruise for five days from the West Coast can get on a bus for McDonald’s and Walmart when they dock. (And they do.)
Upon arrival, if visitors and settlers assume that they’ve simply crossed into another American state, they would be wrong. For example, expecting locals to follow the clock will drive you crazy until you accept that our sense of time is more fluid than fixed. And just because your dog frolics on the beach at home does not mean it can do the same here, since our shoreline is where endangered species such as honu and monk seals nest and rest.
Here’s my advice. In thinking about Hawaii, you should forget mainland patterns because it will only frustrate you. As for being Hawaiian, it has nothing to do with residency but everything to do with genealogy. This means reciting your Polynesian lineage going back generations. If you can’t do that, then you can’t be Hawaiian, no matter how many decades you’ve lived here.
Barack Obama is Hawaii-born but not Hawaiian. Our happy golfer may one day become a Hawaii resident, but he will never be Hawaiian. Out here on islands in the middle of the largest body of water on the planet, the American continental imprint often doesn’t work. To news anchors and new arrivals, coming to these islands is not merely a move across a state line, because Hawaii is not an extension of the West Coast.
Never was and never will be.
Rochelle delaCruz was born in Hilo, graduated from Hilo High School, then left to go to college. After teaching for 30 years in Seattle, Wash., she retired and returned home to Hawaii. Rochelle welcomes your comments at rainysideview@gmail.com. Her column appears the second and fourth Monday of each month.