Most folks around here know and understand that local culture and family values can go back centuries. Most new residents do seem to try and honor that, even if they don’t understand all of it. However, there will always be some folks who seem oblivious to other cultures. For locals, this can seem a bit personal at times, but in reality it happens everywhere. Sometimes the very people who some think perpetuate it, experience it in their home too.
Texas Monthly magazine recently printed that an astounding 700,000 Californians had migrated to Texas. Just Californians — in to Texas! The current governor of Texas even ran a campaign slogan that said, “Don’t California my Texas!” The Austin area has become a tech center and now many “Native Texans” refers to it as Austifornia. If you are a local person reading this now you may be nodding your head while also thinking to yourself, “So it’s not just us!” Rest assured, you are not alone.
California bashing is not what we are going to talk about this week, so Golden State readers need not get huhu here. Quite the opposite. I have family who actually migrated into California about 40 years ago. They chose San Clemente, which used to be a small surf town. Like most of coastal California, San Clemente has been inundated with immigrants. On a recent visit, I met a couple of people who were actually born and raised in San Clemente. I think that makes a total of three I’ve met in some 40 years. I wondered if they felt the same about their native home being invaded and changed as many folks in Hawaii and Texas do.
Both locals said that their families have been in Orange County for generations. One said that she likes to help out on the sport fishing boat named “Buenaventura” down in San Diego. Her boyfriend is the captain. She fits this in when she is not working her other two jobs, helping out family, or trying to sneak off for a surf session. Sound familiar? A surf chic with boyfriend who is a fish boat skipper could easily be right here in Kona. Interchange Orange County with Hawaii County and “Buenaventura” to “Pomaikai” and boom, just like that, it looks like we may have more in common than we knew.
Both ladies both lamented the traffic but coped by living near their work and family. They rarely needed the freeway. A bigger issue to them was housing.Each worked a couple of jobs and feared they would never make enough to buy a house in their own home towns. On top of that rents were so high that along with cost of gas and food, they could only hope that things would go back to “normal” at some point. When asked what “normal” looked like to them, they just looked at each other and laughed.
I stopped in Southern California on my annual trip to Florida for a Wild Oceans board meeting. Although most of what Wild Oceans does is hands on work with the people and managers who actually work with the fish and other ocean creatures, the system is actually managed by our elected officials, so it is part of the job to talk with them from time to time.
Oddly, while in Florida we met with a U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. Right about now, an astute reader may now be thinking, “Hold the phone, what is a guy from Hawaii doing meeting a Senator from Texas in Florida?” and rightfully so. I’d be lying to you if I said that this exact thought had not also occurred to me. However, these types of meetings don’t often happen in Pu’uanahulu so I dragged my jet lagged self to this lunch, even though it was about 5 a.m. Hawaii time.
Ted is a staunch Republican, and If you know me, the irony of my attendance in this meeting is probably not lost on you. When it comes to politics I believe in the words of George Washington when he said, “There is nothing which I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great political parties.” However, I am happy to report that I found Ted to be as personable and easy to talk to as anyone you might chat with at Quinn’s or perhaps the Elks Club. Moreso maybe because he drank Diet Coke at 11:30 a.m., which might be considered suspicious at Quinn’s or the Elks Club.
Through the course of the conversation, in a round about way, the Universe let it be known why having this chat may turn out to be serendipitous: Senator Cruz could become chairman of the Senate committee overseeing the Commerce Department, which — odd as it seems — oversees fisheries. Could being the operative word. Lots of things could happen. You never really know.
Although Cruz has been a member of the Senate Commerce Committee for quite a while, he has been serving on a subcommittees dealing primarily with aviation, not the ocean. Even though he may not even end up as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he listened intently to input on fisheries — our fisheries — way out here in Hawaii.
Toward the end of the lunch the chat turned to family and background. Mrs. Cruz is from California and Ted is the son of Cuban immigrants. Both could be considered to be Texas “implants” as local Hawaiians say. And yet, he represents Texas in the U.S. Senate — a state whose governor ran a slogan, “Don’t California my Texas.” So, you know what? You really never know.