Differences don’t
By Lia Wojtowicz
matter in HawaiiI 'M so white! That was my first thought after I had claimed my luggage at Honolulu Airport and stepped outside to join the throngs of local people greeting their friends and relatives who got off the plane with me.
Everyone around me who wasn't a visitor was toasted with a tan the color of graham crackers from years spent soaking in the healthy rays of the Hawaiian sun, not the chalky white skin of a Pennsylvanian who hadn't seen the sun since mid-October.
Having lived in Pennsylvania almost all of my life, I didn't realize how much I stood out until that moment.
When I was little, what I looked like when I came to Hawaii to visit my family -- my grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, and many, many cousins -- didn't really matter, because basically all rugrats look the same.
Like all the other little ankle-biters, I blended into the sea of stained T-shirts, worn slippers and crooked bangs.
But now, around people my own age, I'm painfully aware of how different I am.
My extremely comfortable fake Birkenstocks look mousy next to troops of four-inch high, neon-green platform shoes. My socks shyly poke a half-inch out of my sneakers instead of crawling up mid-shin.
Now, I'd rather buy out the Gap than Contempo Casuals. And I know that Hello Kitty's evil little face is scowling at my dancing Grateful Dead Bears shirts.
The differences between me and local teen-agers seem major to me. I'm guessing that most island teen-agers write me off as some tourist kid or someone who is totally unaware and clueless. I've had people stare at my feet as if to say, "Where's your socks?"
It's not just the way I look that makes me different.
I'm constantly asking, "What song is this? Is this techno or dance or rap? Or all of the above? Does, uh, anyone want to listen to Dave Matthews here?"
I almost died of shock when a friend asked who Bob Dylan was. Bob Dylan. THE Bob Dylan. I carry a picture of Bob Dylan in my wallet (no joke). Another friend answered the question while I sat there comatosed, "Yeah, He's Jakob Dylan's father. You know, the guy in the Wallflowers."
Someone else asked me if I was all haole. Looking into a mirror that night, I couldn't determine exactly how I looked.
I guessed I appeared super-haole, with my pale skin and curly hair. Back on the mainland, however, I look incredibly Asian next to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed majority.
My good friend at school once told me, when I pulled a hood over my head and tightened the string so you could only see my eyes, that I looked like a ninja. "It's your Asian eyes," she explained. Here, in Hawaii, my eyes are as round as an owl's.
So I guess I do look different. I do talk different. I listen to different music and I have a different personality.
But after a few weeks in the islands, after spending hours and hours at the mall cruising and going to the movies, after days at Ala Moana beach, after walking through my grandparents' Palolo neighborhood, I noticed that my differences really didn't matter.
No one seemed to stare, or make comments about how I looked or acted. That's the best part about being in Hawaii -- everyone's differences kind of melt together. No one really cares that you are different.
Lia Kinu Wojtowicz is 17 and visits her grandparents
and family in the islands frequently. She attends at Bishop Hoban
High School in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and wants to
attend college in Hawaii.Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
Speak up by fax at 523-8509; by answering machine at 525-8666;
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