Changing Hawaii
IT'S true that no good deed goes unpunished. In a bout of temporary insanity earlier this month, I volunteered to wade through the torrent of responses to our March 24-26 "Brain Drain" series and edit a sampling into a special follow-up report, which ran yesterday. ‘Brain drain’ has
many casualties
The vision: I would reap enlightenment about what made people flee the islands. Was it purely economics or something more? Were they healthy, happy and hoping to return?
The reality: Aching angst as to whether I had made the right decision myself.
Reading both expressions of debilitating homesickness and glowing reports of new mainland lifestyles jogged my memory: Two decades ago, I also toyed with the see-saw of going or staying.
Should I attend the University of Hawaii, get a low-paying job in the islands and work my way up, even if it killed my pocketbook in the process? Or should I buy a one-way ticket out and test myself in the bigger pond called New York City? It's no mystery which I chose.
Yet culling through the hundreds of responses to our "Brain Drain" series was traumatizing. It brought the reminder that, no matter how different Hawaii's young people are, they are much too alike: born and raised in the islands; growing up with all cultures and customs; reaching adulthood and then, faced with family and friends comfortably ensconced in the islands, forced to make the call.Expatriates either yearn to come back or have rationalized away any semblance of hometown sentimentality. Yet, for those who stay, it may even be more troubling. They have the added burden of constantly re-evaluating their sanity, and wondering if they, too, should have fled long ago.
That's what Corinne Leilani Domingo's e-mail evoked in me. The 23-year-old former Maui resident is living my once-envisioned existence. She moved to the Big Apple in 1993 to attend college, and then stayed on to pursue a career in national journalism. She is currently on the editorial staff of a popular women's magazine.
BELIEVE it or not, that was this feminist's dream once, too! Instead of being a newspaper editorial page editor, I coulda, woulda, shoulda been the editor (I said it was a dream, right?) of some high-gloss publication like Vogue or Women's Day or even Cosmopolitan. Helen Gurley who?
Thus it was with mixed emotions that I mulled Corinne's online correspondence, which initially stirred in me regret and vicarious excitement. "Living in the center of the publishing world definitely offers the career opportunities I don't think I would have in Hawaii right now," she wrote, making me jealous. It was like being hit in the stomach with a solid right hand.
Then came her follow-up with the left hook, an observation so astute and simple, it left me breathless -- with relief that I had stayed: "Right now, I say that I'll return to Hawaii in five to 10 years. But I've met many locals here who once said the same thing and it's already been 15-20 years for them."
There's only one thing worse than moving away from Hawaii when you don't want to. It's yearning to move back but knowing, deep down inside, that you can't and you won't. And that, maybe, you shouldn't.
Are you from Hawaii, but living somewhere else? Email us at braindrain@starbulletin.com to tell us your views on why you moved away, what might lead you to return and what Hawaii can do to retain its 'best and brightest.' Calling Hawaii expatriates
We'll present a digest of your responses in a later edition.
Brain Drain Archive
Diane Yukihiro Chang's column runs Monday and Friday.
She can be reached by phone at 525-8607, via e-mail at
DianeChang@aol.com, or by fax at 523-7863.
