Visitor or Resident? Malihini or Kamaʻāina?

As a new or part-time resident, maybe even as a frequent visitor to Hawaiʻi, you probably have heard about “kamaʻāina discounts” and wonder how you can get these special rates on hotel rooms or purchases.

In mid-2020, as pandemic restrictions were beginning to ease a bit and visitors were returning, I was standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Kailua Kona. Entrance to the building was still by appointment only, and the desk to check in was outside in the courtyard of the West Hawaiʻi Civic Center. The man in front of me was arguing loudly with the DMV employee. He was there to get an ID card that would allow him to play golf at kamaʻāina rates while he was here sheltering from the pandemic, he insisted. She kept telling him she could give him an application for a license. Finally a manager stepped in to explain that ID cards are for residents who cannot get a drivers license, although if the gentleman wanted to give up his Canadian drivers license he could go through the testing process and apply for a Hawaiʻi drivers license — assuming he met the residency criteria.

The man yelled so loudly that heads turned: “I have owned a condo here for years and I am entitled!”

Luckily hidden behind his mask, the manager softly repeated, “Yes, sir, you are entitled,” with clearly a different meaning than the seeker of a Hawaiʻi state-issued ID intended.

So letʻs talk about the meanings of the word “kamaʻāina” and how you earn your way from being a malihini (newcomer or stranger) to becoming a kamaʻāina.

Kama = child; ʻaina = land. Child of the land. Native born. The literal definition of kamaʻaina as shown on a tile in the sidewalk on Kalakaua Avenue

Does “Malihini” = “Visitor” and “Kamaʻāina” = Resident? Not So Simple…

If you check the Hawaiian-English dictionary (please choose the Pukui – Elbert version if you are buying a physical book), for example here at wehewehe.org, you will find multiple meanings for malihini: Stranger, foreigner, newcomer, tourist, guest, company; one unfamiliar with a place or custom; new, unfamiliar, unusual, rare, introduced, of foreign origin; for the first time. Malihini mākaʻikaʻi, sight-seeing visitor, tourist. 

The word kamaʻāina (and I apologize again as our blog hosting site does not allow for kahako to appear) has these meanings: nvi. Native-born, one born in a place, host; native plant; acquainted, familiar, Lit., land child. Koʻu kamaʻāina, kaʻu malihini, my host, my guest. ʻO wai kou kamaʻāina a laila? Who was your host there? Mamua ke kamaʻāina, mahope ka malihini, first the native-born, then the stranger [often said before legendary battles in deciding who was to strike the first blow].

In the case of who gets the ubiquitous discounts or special rates on golf courses and at hotels and restaurants, what is typically required is a state-issued ID or drivers license as proof of residency. The “kamaʻaina discount or rate” is intended as a kind of goodwill gesture to the local communities in which businesses operate, often hoping to generate business during the off-season for visitor spending.

While the “gentleman” in the example above was not in Hawaiʻi for the first time, and as a property owner did not consider himself a tourist, he neither qualified as born in a place, nor qualified as a full time resident for the purposes of federal and state income taxes. Just to renew my drivers license I am required to bring two documents proving my status as a full time resident.

So does kamaʻaina require you to be born in Hawaiʻi, or merely to have proof of your status as a resident for tax purposes?

I have come to understand that both of these definitions fall short of the richness of the concept — and why as residents we might want to invest in becoming kamaʻāina. The journey starts by acknowledging that we always arrive at a new place as malihini, and we have to put some effort into not remaining a perpetual stranger in a familiar land.

From Malihini to Kamaʻaina – Understanding from a Hawaiian Cultural Perspective

Neighbors and volunteers work to restore a section of traditional dry stack stone wall at a workshop with non profit Hui Hoʻoniho and master Hawaiian stonemason Billy Fields

About a year after this encounter, I learned of a newly published book Remembering Our Inimacies: Moʻolelo, Aloha ʻAina, and Ea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi – Manoa. The author spoke at that yearʻs virtual Hawaiʻi Book and Music Festival and described a chapter touching on how to become kamaʻāīna to a place other than our birthplace. I bought the book as that seemed very pertinent to my efforts to educate newcomers to Hawaiʻi.

Remembering our Intimacies, based upon research done for the authorʻs graduate thesis, is about much more. Fair warning to readers that if words like colonialism, occupation, or indigenous queer theory are triggering or incomprehensible to you, this is probably not the place to start your education. But I found what I was looking for, a better understanding of ʻāina as a bundle of relationships and responsibilities, and of how to create the kind of relationship, or pilina, with a new place that takes you from being a stranger or malihini to that place, to being kamaʻaina, known and bound to that place.

As a resident, you can get a drivers license and take advantage of those kamaʻaina rates. But to actually become kamaʻaina will require you to engage with your new community, listen respectfully, and above all, know your place. Donʻt assume that the people around you think about things the way you think about things. Learn to say place names correctly, and peopleʻs names correctly, and know what they mean. Take your cues from those whose place this was before it was someplace you “owned property.” Mamua ke kamaʻāina, mahope ka malihini, first the native-born, then the stranger. 

And as we approach that other July holiday at the end of the month, you might want to read up on the importance of the events recognized on July 29, Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea. What small thing can you do this month to listen and learn, maybe to volunteer with a local nonprofit to better know your place?