Preparing for an uncertain future
By Dan Nakaso, John Duchemin and David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writers
Dennis' sister, Denise Kinoshita, 37, hasn't always been in a similar stable economic sector. Three years after graduating from Roosevelt High School in 1983, she began working in the state's tourism industry at Waikiki hotels as a PBX operator, front desk clerk and receptionist, among other jobs.
Photos by Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
But when it became clear that Hawai'i's tourist-dependent economy was slowing, Denise enrolled at Kapiolani Community College to study computer science. Now she hopes to get a business degree next year, and is prepared to continue helping the family business.
Denise Kinoshita, a business student, plans to continue helping the family business.
Sadako Kinoshita, matriarch of the Kinoshita clan, makes musubi in the early morning hours.
Occupationally stable, fiscally conservative, apprehensive in some areas, hopeful in others — the Kinoshita family's outlook resembles that of many Hawai'i families, and by extension the overall economy, as the new year dawns.
Despite the uncertainties ahead, and the continuing difficulties afflicting tourism, Hawai'i's economy and families are not in dire straits.
Sadako Kinoshita, the family matriarch, observes that Hawai'i families have been through many booms and busts — the Japanese real estate bubble in the early 1990s, the expansion and contraction of tourism, the shock of Hurricane 'Iniki — and have toughed it out.
Back when she ran the chicken stand, she survived through occasional lean times by going without pay.
"I'm rich because I'm healthy, and I don't owe anybody money," she says.
So the current situation — in which the economy has largely recovered from its post-Sept. 11 downturn, and the outlook is for reasonable growth — really isn't so bad, she believes.
She still is getting paid Social Security, and she still has a floor to sweep at Stanley's at the end of each day.
