The Divided Local: A Personal Foray into the Problematics of Hawai'i Poetic Identity

Abstract

In a recent issue of the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawai'i Visitors Bureau (HVB) president Stanley Hong, arguing the import of a request for a 50 percent increase in funding from the Senate Tourism Committee, said that although "sun and surf is what we've traditionally promoted, " the visitor industry has "got to promote other things as well, such as our environment, businesses, sports, and culture" (18 March 93, A2, italics mine). Given the construction of "Hawaii" as a white-sanded, coconut-treed pre­lapsarian escape from a postmodern nightmare of commodified time and urban glut already promoted by Hollywood and Turtle Bay Hilton commercials, what will the HVB do to the already problematic notion of "local culture?"