Hawaii became a state about 14 minutes ago. I’m not entirely sure the Hawaiians got a great deal. They’ve mostly been supplanted by mainlanders who are disinterested in Hawaiian culture and history.

When rich people swarm a beautiful place, they bring resorts and second homes with them. These homes are expensive, and regular working folk cannot afford them because no job pays enough to carry such an onerous mortgage. It creates a housing crunch, particularly in a place with limited land to build, like Kauai. A worker shortage ensues, which is unfortunate because resorts require a lot of labor. Hawaiians are being pushed out of Hawaii.

This isn’t new or unique, but it does have consequences. Empty trophy homes do not contribute to the tax base, nearby restaurants, local stores, local jobs, and a healthy middle class economy. The jobs adjacent to resorts and second homes do not pay well. Our hotel has shipped people in from afar, mostly India, but it is still not enough. We feel the labor shortage everywhere we go in the form of long lines or unavailable reservations. Restaurants are packed as haggard staff valiantly work too many tables. A chocolate farm we toured was willing to hire us on the spot, no prior experience in agriculture necessary. RBD considered it.

To observe a thing is to change a thing. Me being here alters the environment and economics. I am part of the problem, and this creates a cognitive dissonance endemic to travel. I love experiencing our world and the people in it, but I also don’t like the inevitable consequences.

We did an ATV tour of some of the backcountry. Two locals led us around talking about their home, the flora, fauna, and movies which had been filmed on the property. There is where they shot that movie, pretending to be in Costa Rica. There is where they shot that other movie, pretending to be in Africa. We oohed and awed as if on cue. People love stories about the movies. One particularly movie, I think “Six Days and Seven Nights,” Spielberg wanted a palm tree where no palm tree existed, so the production hired a helicopter to fly a fully grown palm from over the ridge and place it on the beach for the duration of the shoot. Then they paid to fly it back to its original home. Honestly. I didn’t care about the movie stuff, but did enjoy bouncing around in the stunning landscape and hearing about local customs.