I did want to talk about my last article that I wrote for Parachute, because it directly relates to my current work in progress. While vacationing on Maui, almost every day I passed by the Pu'unene Mill - the last operating sugar mill in the islands. I would have a passing thought, "Oh, that's right. I need to set up an appointment to tour the mill for research." Then the thought would pass with "Next time," and I would move on to other vacation-related thoughts. Like the beach.
HCSugar.com |
CHSugar.com |
But the mill came to a sudden, grinding halt this January. Outside pressure from environmental groups twisted the knife deep into the pockets of HC&S and A&B Properties and the New Year greeted hundreds of employees with lay-off notices. I can imagine the peripheral businesses wringing their hands in anticipation of lost revenue: the shipping companies that handle the logistics of getting the raw sugar to the refineries, the metal workers and technicians who build or repair the massive machines that allow the mill to run, the restaurants who provide meals for the employees, the clothing and grocery stores that provide necessities to the families of those employees. It's an ugly chain reaction that a small island like Maui cannot just bounce back from in a few weeks or months. It is its own mini recession that takes a year or more to rise out of.
And what did the environmental groups do in response to this eventual economic dive? They threw a party. The employees hadn't even received their notices yet, and sugar cane burning opponents had a shindig. And this was the point where any argument - rational, well-meaning, or otherwise - this group could have given me to support their point of view went into my "I don't give a flying pig's ass" mental file. As a Maui-born resident who has yet been unable to find an affordable means to move back home, I have a very short fuse for people who think they can move to Maui and change its cultural landscape willy-nilly and never mind the impact it has on the people who REALLY call Hawaii home. (Apparently, my aunt has just as short a fuse, as her op-ed here illustrates.) "Oh, we were celebrating the LIVES we saved because the smoke causes asthma." Bitch please. You celebrated a win and used asthma as the mask. Vog from the volcano creates just as much respiratory problems, if not more, than cane smoke. You going to sue the volcano goddess, too?
Cane burning sucked. It screwed up the laundry, it was hard to drive through, it made breathing difficult (I have asthma, but I can say with great certainty it wasn't because of the cane), it polluted the water, and it turned the sky brown. But it was there because sugar was the industry of the islands for over a century, made profitable by foreigners at the expense of the native and immigrant workers. So we lived with it, because it gave us jobs and opened up new avenues for business. And decades later, sugar began to die, and foreign interest dwindled, leaving empty fields ripe for another kind of foreign take-over: wealthy vacation homes.
Pu'unene Mill, courtesy of Mahina Martin |
These jobless people are local residents with family ties going back generations. Those environmentalists moved to Maui from the mainland, mostly the west coast, and while some may have lived on Maui for 20+ years, their roots are as shallow as their self-interest. It may have been about health and environment when the "Stop Cane Burning" movement began, but in the end it was about stopping a part of Maui's culture in its tracks because it was an inconvenience that marred their version of "island life." Say good bye to the lush green valley folks, because despite what A&B says, it's not going to stay agricultural for long.
"But there are burn opponents who have generational ties to Maui," you argue. Yes, yes there were. And you know what they fought for? A BETTER way to harvest sugar. A BETTER way to manage the land that benefited the people (and by people I mean the employees and their families). A BETTER life for local families (and by local I mean multi-generational). And while hordes of rich people move into the ultra-luxury condos and homes that steadily grow out of the landscape, I sit here in front of my computer on a cold-ass day feeling pretty bitter about that. And coupled with the nostalgic sense of loss with the closing of Pu'unene Mill, I'm feeling a little irritated that "newbies" are re-imagining Maui culture to reflect a Mainland lifestyle.
As the creator of the Maui Built brand so aptly states, "Relax. This Ain't the Mainland."
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