MauiMovingSource.org - Social Climate - Maui Changes, Oprah Is Greedy

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The Short Version (if you're in a hurry):
The social climate on Maui is small kine nuts!

Caveat Emptor:
The wealthy deserve compassion just as much as anyone else. The following paragraphs are meant to, in part, illustrate the great damage caused by greed. While the comments are pointed, they are intended in the spirit of compassion and truthful observation.

The Longer Version (small kine nuts explained):
Maui is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Friendly people, climates varying from tropical to subtropical, world class beaches, great surfing and wind surfing all combine to make Maui a great place to live. But these are the things you already know thus we won't spend much time on those subjects. Instead we'll look beyond the beauty to observe the underlying social dynamics, a knowledge that can only come from living here.

To let my bias be known, I personally love the island of Maui. Yet Maui is in a state of great flux and it's important that the prospective resident understand what they're getting themselves into before they go to the great expense of moving here.

The recent national real estate boom (as of August '05) has hit Maui especially hard. The result is that housing prices and rents have gone through the roof turning an already expensive place into a really expensive place. Tensions are rising as more and more big money (the Oprah Factor) comes to the island displacing the locals that make Maui what it is. The character of the island is changing, becoming less Hawaiian and more Orange County with big city attitudes that grate against the spirit of Aloha.

The ubiquitous Maui Cruiser is giving way to Lexus and Rovers.

Friendly Aloha filled smiles are yielding to arrogance and the sort of silent walls between strangers that you find in the less friendly parts of the world. Each day Maui is becoming less Hawaiian as it succumbs to a more staunchly divided environment with the wealthy on one side, and the mainland low class hedonistic party crowd on the other. The pressure of these two equally dysfunctional dynamics is slowly squeezing the "Aloha" out of Maui.

The American Dream Or Cultural Genocide?:
In my experience, the majority of Native Hawaiians are extremely friendly and real. They possess a great sense of humor and are a lesson to us all in how they take such delight in the simple things. Yet they find their way of life under siege due to the economic tsunami washing across the islands, further fueling the drive for Hawaiian sovereignty.

To the Native Hawaiian perspective, locust like British and American colonization resulted in an 80% drop in the native population and 99% of their land being illegally seized, culminating in their government being overthrown by the USA in 1893. And now, 100+ years later, the economic shift to becoming a place for the very wealthy represents yet another overthrow of their ability to live and raise their families in their own land. To the American perspective, land is just property, something to be traded like anything else. To the Hawaiians, the land is given to all by God, ownership is beyond comprehension. For them, what is going on now is no different than if the USA invaded St. Peter's Basilica and began selling off the Jesus statues. What once belonged to an entire race of people is now mostly in the hands of wealthy foreigners (haole).

There is no other moral way to look at it, America has committed and is committing a serious crime against the Native Hawaiians, no different than the crimes committed against the Native Americans, or against the men and women stolen from Africa.

The big money pouring into the state is fostering a cultural genocide as many Hawaiians are forced to move to the mainland just to survive economically. As the culture is continually diluted by mainland greed and arrogance, something very precious is being lost in the islands. Tensions are rising, and the drum is beating.

A doctor who had just moved to Maui from Los Angeles was talking to a Hawaiian. The doctor asked, "where are you going for your vacation?" The Hawaiian, who was going to the US mainland replied, "I'm going to your country."

A people can only be pushed so far before they lash back. The day will come that the Hawaiian Warrior Spirit shall awaken. It is not a stretch to imagine that once they reach the end of the political rope they're being hung by, that a pseudo Northern Ireland type situation could break out.

Island of Misfit Toys:
The following comments apply to segments of all Maui racial groups. It really applies to the Caucasian demographic. It's the sort of thing every local knows about but wouldn't print for concern of being politically incorrect.

Maui is roughly 50+% Caucasian (the author is as well), the highest percentage of Caucasians of all the islands. There is no polite way to say this, but easily 80% of that Caucasian population are either irresponsible flakes, drunks, drug addicts, or some of each. I share thus not to cast judgment, but rather to prepare you for the social climate you will find here. God Bless them, but in many respects, Maui has become the island of misfit toys.

Why is it like this? Among the working class it is that less functional element of the society who are willing to leave the mainland and put up with the low pay and extremely high cost of living. What they all get in return, rich or poor, is the ability to extend their adolescence another 50 or 60 years!

The Oprah Factor:
If you are wealthy (assuming you made it this far down the page), buying or selling property, please be aware that there is a direct and dire social consequence to the absurdly high real estate prices you are involved with. Poorer owners become unable to pay their property tax and lose their property while the higher rents brought on by the escalation drive more people into poverty. You'll have your place in the sun, or sunny profit, albeit both will always cast a very dark shadow.

Oprah recently purchased some 12,000 acres on Maui. This would make a great Oprah show, "How my greed helped rip the heart out of Maui, and all members of the studio audience get a free dashboard hula girl."

Conclusion:
It is important that you look beyond the tropical beauty and clearly see a more complete picture of what living on Maui is like. Fortunately you have the perfect weather and beautiful ocean to serve as an antidote to the deteriorating social climate. Yes, Maui is a great place to live, but you must seriously consider the expense, social climate and rising tensions before moving here.

Maui no ka oi (Maui is the best), at least much of the time 8-).

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