When Camille Leihulu Slagle applied for on-campus housing at Stanford University mid-pandemic, she was initially excited to leave her home of Oahu, Hawaii. Slagle, who is Native Hawaiian, was working two jobs while attending school remotely and was worried about not having time to focus on her studies, as well as potentially infecting her multigenerational household with COVID-19.
Though her grades have improved since living on the mainland, Slagle is now dealing with a different issue: seeing her classmates’ social media posts about traveling to Hawaii for vacation.
“It’s funny because throughout high school I’ve told people, ‘I’m leaving’ and ‘I want to get off this rock,’” the 19-year-old college freshman said. Now, Slagle says, “I’d give anything to go back. It’s frustrating to see people go into my home and do whatever they want in the middle of a pandemic. Part of the reason I moved up here was to not bring COVID home to my grandma.”
The recent surge of visitors to Hawaii is a concern among locals who are worried about an increase in COVID cases and the health and safety of their family members. Hawaii’s state travel data revealed that nearly 190,000 people visited the state between April 10 and April 17 alone, and with the summer months approaching, this number is expected to reach pre-pandemic tourism levels. Though Hawaii has a mask mandate requiring all people in the state to wear face coverings in public, local news has reported a number of tourists flouting the rules.
For young Native Hawaiians like Slagle, the pandemic has highlighted their community’s long-standing issues with settler colonialism and the state’s massive tourism industry, which threaten their livelihoods and futures on the land their families have inhabited for generations.
“The tourism industry makes money by exploiting Hawaiian culture,” Slagle said. “Hawaii has been portrayed as a paradise and an escape from reality for so long that of course people want to come here to forget their troubles. They’ll leave Hawaii with happy memories, but they won’t think about the harm they might have caused to the people who actually live here.”
Last year, the University of Hawaii reported that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have been hit the hardest by COVID, and the Hawaii Department of Health released new data showing that residents who identify as white or Asian are far more likely to have been vaccinated at this point in the pandemic than other groups, including Native Hawaiians. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders make up a large percentage of essential workers on the islands and are more likely than other ethnic groups to have poorer economic and living conditions.
Slagle attended an all-Native Hawaiian school for 13 years and grew up with a deep understanding of her culture and history. Attending a more diverse educational institution in California has been an eye-opening experience, she said, and made her realize just how many non-Native people don’t know about Hawaii beyond its status as a vacation destination.
“I’ve been making TikToks explaining our history and responding to people who say they want to move to Hawaii in the pandemic,” Slagle said. “Some say we are ‘gatekeeping’ Hawaii, which makes no sense. We’re simply trying to reclaim what was ours in the first place.”
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Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, a professor and chair of the department of political science at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, says much of the displacement and dispossession Native Hawaiians feel today can be traced to U.S. occupation and the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 1890s.
“There was an illegal seizure of all of our national lands, followed by settlement over the next century that has displaced Hawaiians,” Goodyear-Kaʻōpua said. Today, Native Hawaiians comprise just around 10% of the state’s population. “And after statehood in 1959, there’s been nonstop housing development and hotels.”
In addition to worrying about their community’s health, some young Native Hawaiians have also expressed fear that they may one day be unable to buy their own homes. As of February, the median price of a single-family home on Oahu reached $920,000, up 20% from the same month last year, according to real estate firm Locations.
Connor Kalikoonāmaukūpuna Kalāhiki’s family moved to Nevada after he graduated high school because the cost of living was more affordable, and shortly after the pandemic broke out he joined them. Though the 20-year-old Native Hawaiian hopes to move back to Hawaii after graduating from college, he’s now unsure whether that’s a feasible possibility.
“At this rate, I might never be able to own my own house on my ancestral homeland,” he said. “Thinking long-term and sustainably, I’ve been asking myself, ‘How am I going to ensure I can move back home and have security?’ And I’m not sure, and that’s extremely troubling to think about.”
Goodyear-Kaʻōpua says understanding the frustration Native Hawaiians feel about not being able to afford homes in Hawaii requires an understanding of the deep ties they have to the islands.
“Native Hawaiians are genealogically connected to this place and understand ourselves as a network of family relationships that include the mountains, winds, and other manifestations of life,” she said. “We are one sibling among many in this family. To be separated from the land is to be assaulted at the very foundation and fiber of who we are as a people. That process of dispossession has been going on for well over a century now, and has always been a project of imperialism, settler colonialism and oftentimes for corporate, capitalist gain.”
Kalāhiki said one main reason for Hawaii’s affordable housing crisis is that there’s not enough homes to meet the demand. The housing market in Hawaii is competitive and filled not only with locals who wish to buy homes, but also out-of-state buyers who plan on using the homes for vacations or Airbnb short-term rentals.
“I don’t know if these owners realize it, but they’re contributing to this transient community of tourists coming in and out of Hawaii whenever they please,” he said.
Locals expressed outrage online after the recent news that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, purchased 600 acres of land on Kauai. The couple now reportedly own more than 1,300 acres of land in Hawaii. (The couple told Insider that they've “been working closely with a number of community partners to promote conservation” on their property and the surrounding area).
Though he’s not currently living in Hawaii, Kalāhiki hopes to continue supporting his community by transforming Helu Kanaka, the civic engagement organization he created in high school with two peers, into a Native Hawaiian youth rights activist group.
“The argument is always that we need tourism, but my counterargument is that we should shift away from tourism and invest in the community,” Kalāhiki said. “I hope our generation can be a strong force for Indigenous self-determination and liberation, but that’s not possible without a lot of work and investment in what we believe to be important.”
As for the tourists who have already purchased their plane tickets, Kalāhiki recommends being mindful of leaving Hawaii better than they found it.
“When you’re coming as a visitor, you don’t necessarily have to live up to that tourist role,” he said. “While you may be taking up space, you can help to offset that negative impact by volunteering at the local church or a food bank or donating to local nonprofits.”
“I’m not saying people can never come to Hawaii,” Slagle said. “I want people to experience the same love I have for this place, but there is a time and place to do so. I want people to do their research to learn why we’re so hesitant about people visiting.”
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