'Uncle Ben'

This is Ben, or as he'd prefer you call him, 'Uncle Ben.' You probably wouldn't guess from his photo that he's 70 years old. He asked us to guess though, and so we said '50?' He laughed.

Mentionable quotes:

"With $500,000 in the mainland you can buy a mansion...over here you get a cracker box...it wasn't always like that. You'll find some real bitter about it, and I'm a little bitter, but I like living here."

"People here are very nice, it's called 'Aloha Spirit.' But we've been losing it over the years. We didn't used to need to lock our houses.'

'Uncle Ben' was my favorite person to speak with. By the end of our hour long conversation, he invited me and Katie to come stay at his ranch the next time we were in Hawaii. Talking to Ben was awesome, but also very sad and the most eye-opening. I think this really allowed Katie and I to shed any ethnocentric perspectives we were carrying about what we thought Hawaii was. Going into this project, I thought Hawaii would be full of happy citizens practicing what Ben calls the 'aloha spirit.' On TV, all they show you is gorgeous beaches and beautiful homes. What they fail to mention is the crippling poverty; cities of tents that line the beaches, homes with locked gates and 'beware of dog' signs, and home prices in what's considered the 'poor' part of town that still manage to skyrocket past $600,000. Ben's story is sadly no different than many other Hawaiians that he knows. He says Hawaiian homes evicted him from his home and sold it to someone he thought was a friend of his. He says that this is happening to Hawaiians all over the island, and that the younger generation is now having to move to the mainland because wealthy outsiders and buying up all the land and making housing unattainable to people with ancestral roots in Hawaii. I think Ben's situation was a good example of us being able to engage in cultural relativism. Ben's story made me feel for the Hawaiian people and their struggles. It wasn't difficult seeing things from his point of view, however, as his situation seems like something that is repeated all over the world. Areas that used to be have affordable housing and were cultural hubs are now being gentrified to make room for the wealthy and push out the lower class. Although Ben's story isn't joyful, it almost feels like deja vu. I've heard this before.