Labor activist Goro Hokama, 75

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

WAILUKU, Maui — Lana'i labor leader and politician Goro Hokama, who was elected to the Maui County Board of Supervisors during the "Democratic Revolution" of 1954 and served in office for the next four decades, died of cancer Thursday at his daughter's home in Waikapu. He was 75.

HOKAMA

Hokama worked for Dole Pineapple Co. for 45 years and retired in 1991. Although he had opportunities to move up to management positions, Hokama chose to remain a clerk so he could maintain his ties with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142, according to son and Maui County Councilman Riki Hokama.

The elder Hokama work his way up the union leadership ladder to the post of Maui Division representative, protecting the interests of hotel, golf course and construction workers, said Willie Kennison, ILWU Maui Division director.

Kennison said Hokama did not like the fast pace at which Dole was transforming Lana'i from a pineapple plantation to a luxury resort island, and was worried the welfare of longtime workers would be trampled.

"He felt pineapple was an important industry and should remain there," Kennison said.

John Arisumi, a Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. retiree and former ILWU official on Maui, first met Hokama in the late 1940s, when Dole workers went on strike over their first contract.

"Goro was one of the real pioneers for the ILWU on Lana'i," he said. "He was honest, and when I say that I mean he's not the kind of guy who's going to try to fool the rank-and-file. He always came out up front with whatever it was."

Hokama's positions on development sometimes pitted him against his own union — and even his own son. "He fought us tooth and nail," Kennison said. "He stood his ground, he had conviction. People didn't see or hear that much of him because his style was that he was able to accomplish a lot of things and not be flamboyant about it.

"He talked almost in a whisper. He was not very vocal but he was very tenacious."

In 2002, Hokama opposed a request from Castle & Cooke Resorts, formerly Dole, to use drinking water from the island's high-level aquifer to irrigate its Koele golf course — a proposal Councilman Riki Hokama favored, with conditions.

Four decades of service

Goro Hokama was born Dec. 24, 1928 in Wailuku. His Okinawan immigrant parents moved to Lana'i when he was a child. Hokama was student body president at Lana'i High School, graduating in 1946. He also played baseball and in the island's "barefoot football" league.

His math and writing skills earned him a job as a clerk with Dole Pineapple, which owned the island. He interrupted his career to serve in Army during the Korean War from 1951 to 1953, and first ran for office in 1954 at age 25. He won a seat on the Board of Supervisors, which later would become the Maui County Council, and was elected to 20 consecutive terms.

He served his last 16 years on the council as chairman, before retiring in 1994 to run in a bitterly contested race against incumbent Mayor Linda Lingle.

After the election loss, Hokama remained involved in community and civic affairs, serving on the several boards, including the county Civil Service Commission, and top leadership posts with the Lana'i Federal Credit Union and the Hawai'i Credit Union League.

He also was active at Lana'i Union Church, and in his last months he was preparing for July's 3rd Annual Goro Hokama Golf Tournament/Relay for Life to benefit the American Cancer Society. Riki Hokama said the first year of the annual fund-raiser was dedicated to diabetes charities, since it was a family health concern and to honor his longtime friend and council colleague Patrick Kawano of Moloka'i, who died in 2002 after battling the disease.

Last year Hokama, who suffered from heart disease, designated the charity event for the American Heart Association.

Experiences made the man

Riki Hokama, who was elected to the council in 1998, said his father's life experiences in the tight-knit plantation community taught him to never be afraid of hard work and to look out for the interests of the "common man."

"People ask me, 'What does it feel like filling his shoes?' I can tell you it was never meant for his shoes to be filled by me or anyone else," he said. "The times of what he lived through and participated in is a once-in-a-millennia type of thing. He instilled me to find my own path and to pursue it with the same fierceness and dedication he had himself, and to follow my convictions."

Hokama's name is likely to remembered on the island. In April 2001, President Bush signed a law renaming the new Lana'i Post Office after him.

He is additionally survived by his wife of 53 years, Kiwae; a daughter, Joy Helle of Waikapu; two grandchildren; and two brothers, Eisuke and Eiso, both of Honolulu.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.