AFTER DEADLINE
Ethnicity can touch a nerve

By Vicki Viotti

Here at the ethnic affairs desk, the raw material coming in can be pretty fluffy stuff. Traditional festivals, filled with dancing, costumed children. Warm and fuzzy social programs that tap a wellspring of cultural problem-solving resources.

In a way, the experience of covering ethnic affairs mirrors my own adjustment to Hawai'i after my family moved here 35 years ago: It's been a steep learning curve, one that is mostly studded with fascinating and charming episodes and only occasionally marred by ugly ones.

As much as I've counted myself a "local haole," there was far more beneath the surface of ethnicity than I knew. In the first few months on the beat late in 2002, I plunged into a crash course on Korean history, preparing for coverage of the centennial celebration the following year. The Korean experience, one of heroism and sacrifice, is emblematic of immigration stories throughout Hawai'i's melting pot.

Such stories keep the job uplifting. So do the gritty tales of everyday survival and the whimsical aspects of an Island culture cherished apart from individual ethnicities.

Every so often, however, you stumble across one of the scattered shards of racial tension, even outright hostility. Few want to own up to such emotions publicly — which is why it doesn't often find its way into print — but e-mail has provided an easy outlet. People can vent some rather ugly feelings in anonymity, and no single ethnic group corners the market on hate e-mail.

Hawaiian rights and entitlements seem to draw an especially incendiary response. On either extreme: I've received rants from those who say non-Hawaiians have no valid claims in the sovereignty discussion, and vitriol from others offended by the whole notion of preferential treatment of one group over another.

The most memorable e-mail to date addressed our story on September's Ku I Ka Pono march, which I helped cover. The printable section of the note described the reporters as "cross-eyed, idiot, liberal, racist perverts." We saved it as a kind of twisted memento.

Some of these missives are pure bile, but others are tantrums that come from people capable of framing reasoned arguments. And their venting serves as evidence that the so-called "melting pot" is anything but a homogenized blend.

There are kama'aina who quietly grouse that critics of Island cultural politics ought to live here a while before they throw stones. At the other end of the spectrum, a woman who's a recent arrival to Hawai'i disclosed some private wounds inflicted by neighbors who've hurled racial epithets her way.

I remembered my own close encounters with racism when I was a kid here — nothing that startling, the usual random barbs from schoolyard bullies. I've long since learned to let unpleasant episodes roll off my back, but that maneuver becomes harder the older you get.

None of these people want to be quoted about this. What's said in private, or fired off in an e-mail, doesn't end up in print that often.

Clearly there's a measure of anger out there that must be reckoned with.

The pretty picture will still remain in the foreground, of course. On balance, it's what makes life in Hawai'i so enviable. And we all need the soft stuff to cushion those hidden shards.

Vicki Viotti is The Advertiser's ethnic affairs writer.