As tourists return to West Maui after a deadly fire, some Hawaiians rethink what ‘aloha’ means and how much of it they have left to give to visitors.
Katie Austin, a 35-year-old server, paints a sign protesting the reopening of West Maui to tourists two months after a wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina, Hawaii.
Hawaii is famous for its “aloha spirit,” a concept rooted in Native Hawaiian culture that long ago was commodified into the guiding philosophy for resorts and other businesses catering to tourists. More than a chill tropical greeting — an exotic salutation used in place of hello and goodbye — aloha is defined byIt’s a spirit that’s been in abundance among locals as people helped each other after the fire.
Kiakona, an organizer of the grassroots activist group Lahaina Strong, warned that tourists who flock to the golden sand beaches and hotels with swim-up grotto bars and spas offering $200 massages could face backlash from locals who fear they will be priced out of their hometown.Tension has long existed between Hawaii locals and visitors.
The allure of aloha as a slogan only grew after 1959, the year that Hawaii became a state and Pan American Airways inaugurated jet travel to Honolulu — part of a campaign by state leaders to reduce economic dependence on plantations by expanding tourism. This idea of aloha as a radical act of love with no conditions attached has some wondering whether it allows outsiders to take advantage. Some Hawaiian cultural experts say aloha is a complex and fluid idea, too often misconstrued as a sweet and servile way of tolerating visitors.
But Aveno said it wasn’t just the money that kept her working; she would go crazy, she said, if she stayed in her cramped, temporary hotel room.Grace Tadena, a 55-year-old Filipino immigrant and front desk agent at the Ritz Carlton 10 miles north of Lahaina, said she was glad the resort had reopened for tourism.Most tourists, Tadena said, had been kind — and she, in turn, was not holding back her aloha, a value she embraced after moving to Hawaii in 1989.
Tourists at the resort where she is staying have stopped her with questions. However well meaning they might have been, she finds it infuriating to explain her situation over and over to strangers. In recent decades, a growing number of visitors snapped up condos as second homes and short-term rentals. Now the median home price in the Lahaina area is $1.7 million, out of reach for blue-collar workers earning $20 to $25 an hour.
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