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Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

What Hawaiʻi graduation ceremony isnʻt complete without "Piko Mango," "Lilikoi" and "Cheehoo"?

Firefly graduation cap and Hawaiian lei 73612

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Reading local names at graduation</title>

Today's social post from ekahi808 will help you prepare for Hawai‘i's upcoming graduation season.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Reading local names at graduation

What Hawaiʻi graduation ceremony isnʻt complete without "Piko Mango," "Lilikoi" and "Cheehoo"? 

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

 threw the first and only touchdown of his NFL career thus far, it was also the first career touchdown for the player on the receiving end in fellow Cleveland Browns rookie Dylan Sampson. 

While some thought the ball would be cut in half, Gabriel wanted to let Sampson have the entire ball. Material possessions are not a priority for Gabriel, who famously drove a minivan in his final year of college in order to be able to drive more teammates around. 

"He's always been that way, and we love that about him," Gabriel's father, Garrett, recently told Aloha State Daily. "He told (Sampson), 'Hey, you deserve it.'"

Come Sunday, Gabriel will get an opportunity to add to his career milestones. On Wednesday, the Browns announced that Gabriel, their rookie quarterback, will make the start in their Week 5 game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. 

Gabriel, a Mililani alumnus, is set to make Hawai‘i history in doing so, becoming the first person who graduated from a public high school in Hawai‘i to start an NFL game at quarterback. 

Kamehameha alumnus Joe Francis was the first player from a Hawai‘i high school to start a game a quarterback, doing so for the Green Bay Packers in 1958. Meanwhile, Saint Louis alumnus Marcus Mariota has started 76 games in an NFL career that began in 2015. Fellow former Crusader Tua Tagovailoa has started 66 games and counting behind center from 2020 to 2025. 

"Being from Mililani, my son just totally loves the community. He takes it with pride. He understands he's not only doing this for himself, but there's a lot of people that want him to do well, and he knows who he's representing. We're very touched," Garrett Gabriel said. "We followed Marcus (Mariota), Tua (Tagovailoa), and we understand the legacy of Hawai‘i quarterbacks and what they've done. He just wants to go out there and make the state proud, and the community of Mililani proud."

Dillon Gabriel, a Mililani native, attended Punahou in seventh and eighth grade before ultimately deciding to attend his hometown high school. During college offseasons, Gabriel donated brand new Nike uniforms and equipment to various Mililani teams through NIL. 

"Having experienced that private school thing for about two years and when he back moved over, the family got a lot closer. We did a lot more things together," Garrett Gabriel recalled. "A lot of things would be in passing, dropping off my other son, coming back, going there. When he went to Mililani, it was like the family got settled in, and it became a place where you can grow, a place where you can be yourself and be with people in the community. And so that's why I think he cherishes Mililani so much and is willing to do anything for the community, because it made him who he is today, really."

As a freshman in 2015, Gabriel took over for an injured McKenzie Milton and went on to set the Hawai‘i high school passing yardage record with 9,948 yards, according to Hawaii Prep World. He was surpassed by Campbell's Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, who finished with 10,653 following his senior season in 2024. 

 is now the starting quarterback at Cal as a true freshman. 

"Just beyond words. Just so proud of him and his family and I hope continued success for him," Mililani head football coach Rod York said. "I'm not gonna be the guy that's like, 'Oh, I knew he was going (to the NFL),' but I knew he was going to do great things. Everything's due to his parents, to his hard work. He's taking all of us, man, the whole 808 is behind him."

Gabriel began his collegiate career at UCF in 2019 before transferring to Oklahoma in 2022. He spent his final year of collegiate football at Oregon in 2024, where he broke the FBS career passing touchdowns record and became a Heisman Trophy finalist. 

In April, Gabriel was selected by the Browns in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft with the 94th overall selection. He has played sparingly for the 1-3 Browns thus far prior to his first start. 

Sunday's game between the Browns and Vikings, which takes place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England, will kick off at 3:30 a.m. HST. It will also be televised on NFL Network. 

On Friday, Dillon Gabriel divulged during a press conference that his family wouldn't be able to make the trip because his father doesn't have a passport, which made the rounds on social media. 

"I did have a passport, but we didn't renew it because we were thinking we weren't going to go anywhere outside the states," Garrett Gabriel clarified with a chuckle. "And of course, by the time we decided to renew they said it takes five days, and so we're like, you know what? We'll just watch it from home. And (Dillon) was fine with that."

With Sunday's early kickoff, particularly by Hawai‘i standards, the Gabriel family is already making plans. 

"We'll probably sleep a little earlier than normal," Garrett Gabriel said. "I think we'll be ready to go at 3:30. Doesn't matter what time. Everybody wants to be there for his first start and just enjoy the moment. We'll have some leftovers, some breakfast, but we'll definitely be up for it."

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<title>Mililani’s Dillon Gabriel set to become first from a Hawai’i public high school to start…</title>

Gabriel will be the first graduate of a public high school from the Islands to start an NFL game at quarterback.

Mililani’s Dillon Gabriel set to become first from a Hawai’i public high school to start a game in the NFL at quarterback

Arrasmith Portrait

Perry Arrasmith

Government & Politics

Columnists

The most bizarre section in Hawai‘i’s 

 is the one that relates to the state’s regulation of population growth. It is a testament to a bygone era informed by misguided local anxieties. 

Runaway population growth across the Hawaiian Islands once occupied the Hawai'i zeitgeist. While much of this mindset persists in the halls of society, it contrasts with Hawai‘i’s contemporary demographic woes. 

Between April 1960 and April 1970, Hawai‘i added 115,510 residents to its population, totalling 748,182 residents across the islands. It was a meteoric rise that stressed the Hawai‘i’s poor infrastructure, corrupt land management practices, and limited housing across the islands. 

Hawai‘i was a young, growing society. The median age of a resident was 25. Much of the State’s dynamism and vigour, in turn, were informed by a mix of talent both local and non-local.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Perhaps it was too much of a good thing. "}]

During this time, national commentators were fretting about the global population’s growth. Paul and Anne Ehrlich had co-authored 

in 1968. Internationally, the Club of Rome furnished the

report, which only further argued against overconsumption. Political views wrapped in scientific dogma started-off a new movement whose cultural salience was confirmed by the 1973 film 

While societies were wasteful and inefficient, these reports didn’t necessarily call for more efficiency. Instead, they called for fewer people. 

While the times have changed, our Constitution’s outdated language shows how we are still stuck in the ’70s. Through national debates over population control, Hawai‘i became a tragic guinea pig that used environmentalism to justify population control, opening the floodgates for arguments against urban development, immigration, and economic growth. 

These conversations continue to plague Hawai‘i’s zeitgeist, most notably when it comes to unnecessary conflict between economic growth and environmental stewardship.

In 1970, the Hawai‘i State Legislature passed Senate Resolution 305, establishing the State’s Temporary Commission on Population Stabilization. A 1972 report issued by the Commission suggested an inverse relationship between environmental stewardship and population growth. 

“It remains to be seen whether or not we will achieve a balance with the limits of the Hawaiian environment in this present period of growth in Hawaiian history,” the 

 warned, “but it should be recognized that with respect to maintaining the quality of the environment, population and prosperity are ‘trade-offs.’ If we expect to maintain a fixed level of pollution and impact on the environment by people in Hawaii, then any increase in one will require a corresponding decrease in the other.”

In the following year, the State Senate once again adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of an optimum state population. “The question of population equilibria among the Islands is a difficult one to answer quantitatively,” a 

 from the Department of Planning and Economic Development warned.

“One must consider the impact on the environment, what ‘quality of life’ should be used as a measure, means of developing a viable economy within a stable population, and the size of population on each Island which will bring about a desirable balance with the social and natural environment of Hawai‘i.”

Nationally, the Commission on Population and the American Future had been established by federal law in March 1970. A final 

 issued by the Commission was submitted to the U.S. Congress in March 1972, with proposals ranging from increased abortion access to voluntary sterilization to stricter immigration controls. Out of political embarrassment for its recommendations, the Nixon Administration largely distanced itself from the Commission.

However, the rhetoric which argued for limits on immigration had devastating consequences. In the present-day, arguments blaming immigrants for environmental degradation have had devastating 

Back in Hawai‘i, the reports stacked on one another. In 1972, Earl R. Babbie of the civic organization 

, a major argument for a cap on Hawai‘i’s population at one million (Hawai‘i’s population reached this threshold in the mid-’80s). 

These reports built a case for a more permanent state agency tasked with controlling the state’s population growth. As a result, the Commission on Population Stabilization and the Hawaiian Future was 

A primary architect of the measure, Nadao Yoshinga, was not solely worried about the influx of outsiders. Natural population growth among existing residents was another worry. Yoshinaga, an influential member of the State Senate, would 

 in the name of limited Hawai‘i’s population growth over the coming years. Limiting population by whatever means necessary (in the confines of the law) was the objective.

At around this time, Robert C. Schmitt, the State Statistician of Hawai‘i, 

 of the emerging field of population policy. Proponents of population control, at least in the early Statehood era, had started to organize in the late ’60s through such organizations as the University of Hawai‘i-sponsored Zero Population Growth-Honoulu, Citizens for Hawai‘i, Life of the Land, the Sierra Club, and Save our Surf. 

These groups advocated for policies to halt population migration, economic development, and other factors like densified communities in the name of environmentalism. Perhaps tragically, this misguided approach to Hawai‘i’s prevailing problems created a manichean world of values in conflict with one another.

Arguments for population control in the name of environmental stewardship had a real impact on policy in the late ’70s. Most notably, this came to a head in 1977.

During his annual State of the State address, Governor George Ariyoshi directly addressed population control, arguing for immigration controls and density regulation in the name of the ‘aloha spirit.’

“The problem of excessive population seems to be central to nearly every problem in the State.” he started. “Too many people means too few jobs and too much competition for them. Too many people means too little land for agriculture, parks, and scenic vistas. Too many people means too much crime and too much erosion of possibly our single most important commodity: the Aloha Spirit. Too many people means too much pressure on all our governmental and private institutions.” 

Ariyoshi wanted fewer people in Hawai‘i, plain and simple. To reinforce his views, the State Legislature even sponsored a 

 on population and the Hawaiian future in March 1977. 

One piece of legislation would have discriminated against recent arrivals to Hawai‘i through residency requirements for state jobs. A Federal Judge based in Honolulu, the part-Hawaiian Sam P. King, condemned the State of Hawai‘i’s flirtation with a flagrantly “anti-migratory” statute.

These attempts provide a marked contrast with the present day. In January 2025, the Department of Human Services 

 that the State suffers from a vacancy rate of 24% of all civil services positions (equivalent to more than 4,000 jobs). 

Nevertheless, Hawai‘i still inserted a section into its Constitution at the 1978 Constitutional Convention that called for population planning. To date, it is the only Constitution in the United States with such explicit language.

Instead of promoting smarter urban planning methods that conserved space while reducing sprawl or incentivizing farmers to bring more fallow agricultural land into cultivation, it was more convenient to blame the outside migrants for Hawai‘i’s development problems.

Instead of fostering solutions which invite greater societal innovation, it is more convenient to fall for an ideology wrapped in the veneer of science. 

Since 1970, Hawai‘i’s population fortunes have reversed.

Global population growth is not exponential, nor could it sustain the growth rates witnessed after the Second World War. In fact, our planet’s 

 will likely begin declining before 2100. 

The paranoia of the ’70s became irrelevant over the following decade. By 1983, the Commission on Population and the Hawaiian Future had been abolished.

For a majority of Hawai‘i’s residents in 2025, the ’70s are a foreign, unknown domain. Since Hawai‘i’s 

 was 41 as of 2024, it’s safe to conclude more than half of Hawai‘i’s population was born after 1980.

Today, Hawai‘i is missing people. It is one of the fastest aging states in the United States. The population is contracting, with more than half of all Native Hawaiians on the planet living outside of the archipelago.

Culturally, it is still easy to blame the outsider for our own problems. Instead of acknowledging our own complicitly in failing to plan for the future, it is far easier to find that the outsider is only exacerbating the problems we are not addressing. Policies which now arrest growth not only injure potential migrants. They also hurt residents.

The debates over population control in the ’70s were about a fear of change and a society’s failure to properly navigate the pressures wrought by new forces.

Contemporary conflicts over growth still magnify this attitude. Not unironically, stewarding Hawai‘i’s environment means Hawai‘i’s environment needs to also steward Hawai‘i’s people.

“It should be remembered,” Governor John Burns said in 

, “that the key ingredient in any environment is man himself: he is part and parcel of and the key to the value of our total system of symbiotic relationships on this earth. Being a part of the environment demands that we consider human economics together with biological ecology.” 

“If man is hungry, ill-housed, undereducated or poorly treated in his society,” he wondered, “what service is it to him that his environment remains in its pristine, natural state?”

A society without one cannot have the other. We need to think about growth, not stabilization. We need to think about people.

In our own time, we need a Constitution whose thinking is not tethered to the past. While the language in outdated documents like our Constitution locks our zeitgeist in another time, we need to get over our history. We need a better zeitgeist.

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