After the Maui fire, some Hawaiians rethink aloha spirit. Is it for tourists, family, everyone?
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Paele Kiakona is not prepared to return to work. He doesn’t want to serve tourists, pouring brut champagne or topping their mai tais with honey-liliko’i foam, because he’s still reeling from the August wildfires that ravaged his hometown of Lahaina.
“I’ve seen dead people on the street,” Kiakona admitted. “My grandmother’s house is no longer standing.” “My entire town died.”
The 28-year-old Hawaii native, who worked as a bartender at a farm-to-table restaurant north of Lahaina, is wary of answering questions, including the ultimate dreaded icebreaker: “Did you lose your house in the fire?”
Visitors, he said, aren’t the ones who need his help right now.
“Our aloha is reserved for our family right now,” Kiakona explained. “It’s not just endless aloha.”
Hawaii is well-known for its “aloha spirit,” a concept rooted in Native Hawaiian culture that was long ago commodified into the guiding philosophy for resorts and other tourist-oriented businesses. Aloha is defined by state law as “mutual regard and affection” and extending “warmth in caring with no obligation in return.”
It’s a spirit that has been abundant among locals as people have helped each other in the aftermath of the fire. But as tourists return to West Maui in search of paradise, some Hawaiians are reconsidering what “aloha” means to them and how much of it they want to give to strangers when so many in their community have lost homes and loved ones.
They claim that they are not withdrawing aloha, but rather redefining and redistributing it.
“Aloha has been commercially sold as mai tais and a good time, and that the arms will be welcome and ready for you,” Kaliko Kaauamo, 37, a taro farmer and curriculum writer for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, said. “Aloha, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows… “Having aloha sometimes means screaming and crying and being there to hold people in their grief.”
The fire that raged through the historic town of Lahaina on Aug. 8 killed 98 people and destroyed or damaged over 2,200 structures. The state reopened West Maui this month, despite the fact that many blue-collar residents believe it is too soon to greet visitors with warm smiles, alohas, and fresh flower leis.
Hawaiian hospitality is an important part of the Maui economy. With tourism accounting for nearly 40% of the island’s GDP, Gov. Josh Green has argued that closing West Maui resorts would jeopardize thousands of jobs and the region’s economy. However, a significant number of workers believe that tourists should not be expected to stay in hotels and condos north of Lahaina until schools and stable housing are available.
More than 6,800 Lahaina residents have taken refuge in hotel rooms or rental condos, with no certainty as to how long they will be able to stay.
Kiakona, a member of the grassroots activist group Lahaina Strong, warned that tourists flocking to the golden sand beaches and hotels with swim-up grotto bars and spas offering $200 massages may face backlash from locals who fear being priced out of their hometown.
“We made our case. “You chose not to listen,” Kiakona stated. “The blood is on your hands.”
As one West Maui resident put it on a protest sign, “FRESH OUT OF ALOHA.”
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Locals and visitors in Hawaii have long been at odds.
When British explorer Capt. James Cook anchored off the Hawaiian islands in 1778, he was greeted by locals eager to trade cuttlefish, breadfruit, and pigs for nails and iron tools. But he and his sailors stayed too long, depleting supplies and spreading venereal diseases. Cook was ultimately stabbed to death.
Christian missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the early 1800s, encouraged by Native refugees fleeing the brutal wars of King Kamehameha’s conquest and urging Westerners to evangelize the islands.
Then came sugar and pineapple magnates from the United States and Europe, who destroyed the ecosystem by digging up native taro and banana trees and draining wetlands to irrigate their plantations. They deposed the Hawaiian Kingdom’s Queen Liliuokalani in 1893, and the United States annexed Hawaii five years later.
The commercialization of “aloha” was already well underway at the time. According to George Kanahele, a late native Hawaiian historian and activist, aloha-themed souvenirs were popular among Hawaii’s first tourists. Sheet music for the song “Aloha Oe,” written and composed by Queen Liliuokalani when she was a princess in 1878, was among the best-sellers. Later, in 1936, the Aloha shirt was patented.
The allure of aloha as a slogan only grew after 1959, when Hawaii became a state and Pan American Airways launched jet service to Honolulu as part of a state-led campaign to reduce economic reliance on plantations by expanding tourism.
“Aloha” is now printed on cheap souvenir T-shirts, shot glasses, and postcards featuring women in grass skirts. Every Hawaiian vehicle license plate has it etched beneath a rainbow. Resorts even hire “Aloha ambassadors” to share traditional Hawaiian cultural practices.
However, for many native Hawaiians, Aloha goes much deeper. “Aloha” literally translates as [Alo] ‘presence’ and [H] ‘breath.’ The Aloha Spirit law was enacted by the Hawaiian government in 1986, inspired by Pilahi Paki, a Maui-born poet and philosopher who spoke of the aloha spirit at a 1970 conference on the islands’ future.
Paki argued that “the world will turn to Hawaii as they search for world peace because Hawaii has the key… and that key is ALOHA” at a time when the United States was entrenched in the Vietnam War and many Hawaiians felt they were losing links to their history, culture, and language.
Some question whether the concept of aloha as a radical act of love with no strings attached allows outsiders to take advantage. According to some Hawaiian cultural experts, aloha is a complex and fluid concept that is too often misinterpreted as a sweet and servile way of tolerating visitors.
“To suggest that Hawaiians avoid direct confrontation out of fear or some false notion of aloha is to ignore the whole set of operative values that Hawaiians respected, such as aggressiveness, courage, dignity, honor, competitiveness, and rivalry,” Kanahele wrote in his book, “Ku Kanaka — Stand Tall: A Search For Hawaiian Values.”
Maui residents were resetting boundaries after the fire, according to Kaauamo.
“It’s Aloha 2.0., in that, as much as we serve others, it’s time to serve the self,” she went on to say. “And as much as I give so freely to strangers, I will now give that to my neighbor, to people closer in the bubble.”
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When she sees tourists driving around the Lahaina bypass or carrying folding chairs to the beach, Mahealani Criste wants to scream: “What the hell are you guys doing here?”
The 37-year-old reservations agent for a vacation rental company applied for a paid leave of absence this month because she couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her job curating perfect vacations for visitors.
After her apartment complex, one of the few affordable housing units in town, collapsed in the fire, answering questions about snorkel cruises and lomilomi massages felt too much. She was afraid she would hang up on tourists, scream, or cry as she struggled to find a new rental for herself and her two children.
“You’re making vacation dreams come true, setting their itinerary, but there is no itinerary,” she said with a smile. “Our town burned.”
Some residents who have lost their homes are still welcoming tourists.
Beberlyn Aveno, a 56-year-old Filipino immigrant, was recently back selling puka shell necklaces at her kiosk in Kaanapali’s Whalers Village shopping mall. She wished more tourists would return; some days she only made $20.
But it wasn’t just the money that kept Aveno working; she said she’d go insane if she stayed in her cramped, temporary hotel room.
“It’s good to get out and have people to talk to,” she told me. “I welcome everyone. It’s therapeutic.”
Grace Tadena, a 55-year-old Filipino immigrant working at the Ritz Carlton 10 miles north of Lahaina, said she was relieved that the resort had reopened for tourism.
“It’s our bread and butter.” We can’t exist without our company.”
Most tourists, Tadena said, had been gracious — and she wasn’t holding back her aloha, a value she adopted after moving to Hawaii in 1989. “Aloha follows me wherever I go,” she said.
Many locals, however, say they no longer have the bandwidth to ignore some visitors’ entitled or insensitive behavior.
Locals were outraged just days after the fire when a charter boat brought tourists to snorkel around Lahaina before search and rescue teams had finished scouring the water for bodies. A few residents have nearly collided with tourists who have stopped on the side of the road to photograph the burn zone.
Courtney Lazo, 33, a real estate agent who grew up in Lahaina and lost her family home, couldn’t bring herself to show visitors properties — or say aloha — as she struggled to find housing for her husband, two teenagers, father, and 81-year-old grandmother.
Tourists at the resort where she is staying have approached her and asked her questions. She finds it infuriating to explain her situation to strangers, no matter how well-meaning they may have been.
“You’re choosing to vacation here in Lahaina and create memories in the middle of our broken lives and burnt downtown.”
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Locals say that many visitors to Hawaii are enchanted by the concept of aloha but are unaware of the impact of their presence on the island.
“There’s postcard Hawaii — Elvis and Don Ho and grass skirts — that’s what everybody comes here for,” said Naiwi Teruya, 35, a cook who worked as an executive chef at Down the Hatch seafood restaurant before the fire. “They don’t understand the struggles that the people who live here have been going through, like fighting for water for many, many, many generations.”
Many locals believe the fire was caused by colonial and modern development practices that uprooted native trees and diverted water. Over the last half-century, a slew of opulent resorts with tropical gardens, lavish pools, and golf courses have sprouted north of Lahaina, draining water from local land and contributing to a housing crisis.
Over the last few decades, an increasing number of visitors have purchased condos as second homes and short-term rentals. The median home price in the Lahaina area is now $1.7 million, making it out of reach for blue-collar workers earning $20 to $25 per hour.
Many people who are looking for housing — whether to replace burned-out apartments or to stay in while their homes are rebuilt or remain off-limits — blame outsiders for driving up prices.
Tiffany Teruya, 37, Naiwi’s sister and a single mother who lost her rental apartment in the fire, said she couldn’t find a new home for herself and her 13-year-old son on west Maui without government assistance. The cheapest apartment she could find cost $3,000 per month, which was more than double what she was paying prior to the fire.
Teruya believes it is time to rid the island of short-term rentals.
Teruya told the city council, “I would like to see vacation rentals removed from every neighborhood on the entire island.” “Lots of us lost everything, and the very little some of us may have left, we going to fight for that.”
There is no shortage of aloha among the locals.
As the government provided little assistance in the days following the fire, Lahaina schoolteachers, surfers, lifeguards, bartenders, roofers, and carpenters banded together to assist their neighbors.
Water, gas, air purifiers, and respirators were transported in boats, trucks, and dugout canoes. They established a network of relief hubs in parks and front yards to provide displaced residents with clean water, canned Spam, bags of rice, diapers, and medicine. They offered massages, acupuncture, and story time for children.
Local fishermen caught blue striped snapper from the sea, and mountain hunters caught wild boar. Cooks fried the fish and prepared the roasted pork for their neighbors.
The bonds between islanders had grown stronger, according to Naiwi Teruya.
“I don’t want to serve everyone who has everything,” Teruya said after finishing a shift frying fish at Honokwai Beach Park’s distribution hub. “I would much rather take care of people suffering.”
Even though Teruya preferred that West Maui remain closed to tourists, he said he would continue to give aloha to everyone.
“We have sacred aloha,” he explained. “We say it because no matter how down we are, we can still deliver the greeting and the feeling behind it, because we’re not a weak people.”
Teruya explained that the word sets the tone and reminds people, even strangers, that they are part of a community.
“The word ‘aloha’ is not just this thing you do because your job tells you to do it,” he went on to say. “It’s our way of saying, ‘I can see you, you’re a person.'” And I’m a person as well.”
