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ASD Staff

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

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Today's social posts come from howsdisguy: Part one and two of talking story with your roughboy philosopher relative.

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: A comedy crime saga in two parts

Kveekz on Instagram is today's social media find, celebrating some pleasant surprises.

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: "A good day in Hawai‘i"

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Surfer gets dropped</title>

Glad jackakrop19 is doing OK after this big wave wipeout at Jaws, on Maui's north shore.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Surfer gets dropped

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Sterling Higa

Columnists

Stand-up comedian Tumua is doing crowd work somewhere on the Mainland, and 

 from the audience. The guy is from Kauaʻi, not born and raised, but “flown there, grown there.” He hasn’t lived there in nine years. While Tumua works the crowd, the guy shouts “chee hoo.” Tumua says, “That’s a solid chee hoo, man.” He does it again. Tumua has to shush him.

It’s a small moment, and Tumua plays it off with dry affection. The guy is playing out what he remembers of a place he left nine years ago. Much of the crowd never lived there at all.

Frank De Lima didn’t have that problem performing locally. Most of his audience hadn’t left. They were in the room — sharing the same plate lunch memories, cringing at the same accents, laughing because every joke was an inside joke. This wasn’t an introduction to local culture. It was a reminder, a celebration, even a reinforcement.

The plantation village was a truly different kind of place — shared land, shared labor, ethnic groups pressed close together with no way out. Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and Hawaiians were all crowded into the same neighborhoods and schools. What came out of it — the food, the humor, the pidgin — came from people who couldn’t opt out of each other.

Even as that world was dissolving, people reached back for its symbols. By 1978, a political movement called Palaka Power had taken the plantation worker’s cloth as its name — a clear link to the past. The Palaka Power 

 said so plainly. The writers also noted, in the same breath: the ILWU was declining, sugar and pine would soon be gone, the Democrats of the ‘54 Revolution had mostly left the arena. They chose the symbol precisely because the reality was already receding. The myth was always partly constructed. But it was backed, then, by people who had actually 

The built world that replaced the plantation village included public housing, suburbs, and apartments. The Mainland has all of those. And then came radio, television, the internet, smartphones, and eventually TikTok.

Stand in the Sandy Beach parking lot on a Saturday. A kid near the lifeguard stand is hitting a vape and dancing to a song trending in Atlanta. The shaka sticker on the bumper is working harder than it used to. But social media didn’t cause any of this. It arrived to find the flattening of culture mostly finished and has been tracking it ever since.

The audience for local content skews diaspora: Aunties in Vallejo, Kalihi kids now in Las Vegas, people holding onto something they can’t quite name.

Nostalgia is real. But it runs in one direction. You can package a memory and ship it to Fresno. What you can’t do is put it back. A friend put it plainly: are we our own cover band?

Distinct cultures are not accidents. They grow from particular people living side by side. The plantation village wasn’t a brand. It was a neighborhood. The shaka sticker can travel, but the neighborhood can’t. Something real is lost when a place becomes content.

. He’s reaching for something he actually had, once. What is it, exactly? The memory of a place, a people. The kind of memory that swells within and erupts in shouts — or tears. It’s the memory that many hold of Hawai‘i, even those who visited only for a week.

Nostalgia can become sinful when we deceive ourselves. It’s easy to romanticize farm labor from the comfort of air-conditioned offices, but the plantations were not a paradise. And neither is Hawai‘i. The past is worth a visit, but no place to make a home. 

That’s a solid chee hoo, man — but once is enough. Shush.

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<title>What's in a chee hoo?</title>

Generations removed from the plantation era that forged it, local culture is in danger of becoming a nostalgia-fueled performance of itself, writes ASD columnist Sterling Higa.

What's in a chee hoo?

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

Food & Dining

As of last week, The Pantry by Feeding Hawaiʻi Together had 16,623 families registered in its e-commerce system. 

“They don't come every single week, but they'll come as needed,” Executive Director Jennine Sullivan told Aloha State Daily. “On a weekly basis, we serve around 11,00 unique families. Everyone can shop and pickup food once a week, but not everyone does. Sometimes itʻll be every other week or once a month.”

She added that the year-over-year increase in families served has been “staggering,” up 121% in 2024 above the year prior. 

“Our goal is to continue serving families, offering nutritious and culturally-relevant items and fresh produce,” Sullivan said. “The Hawaiʻi Foodbank is the Feeding America Partner, so they import food and distribute it to organizations like us – weʻre direct access. The partner agencies then distribute it to the hands of the families.”

Sullivan, who graduated from Punahou School and worked several corporate jobs on the Mainland before returning home in 2020, was recruited to reopen The Pantry in a new 13,000 square foot facility in Kalihi, following the sale of its Kakaʻako warehouse in 2016. The nonprofit was established in 2000 by founders Diana and Charlie Lorenz, who introduced the “grocery store style” shopping model that allows community members to select the items they want at no cost to them.

Non-food items are also available such as hygiene products, diapers, seasonal goods and even slippers. Each individual can select up to 10 items per week for pickup from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday or Friday. 

ASD visited The Pantry on a Tuesday, where volunteers packed and sorted orders for distribution.

, which recognizes women making a difference in their communities across the country.

“I was incredibly surprised and grateful,” she said, adding that they sought her out, it wasn’t nomination based. “What I do here is not because Iʻm some superhero. It’s because I have an amazing team of staff, volunteers, community partners, local farmers and distributors who enable us to do our work.” 

As The Pantry looks to expand, she said, “It's not necessarily to serve more people, but it is to help better support and grow our food ecosystem here in Hawaiʻi.”

One way the nonprofit is doing that is through a partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi's Urban Garden Center. “We send volunteers to the UH Mānoa campus to plant and harvest produce – like taro, ʻulu, lettuce, bananas – that our clients love.”

Sullivan said building a welcoming culture of inclusiveness has helped maintain and grow the organization’s volunteer base over the years. 

Last year alone, The Pantry had more than 1,200 unique volunteers, many of whom she said have served with the organization since the beginning. 

“You’ll work hard here, but you’ll have fun,” she said. “Our motto is serving with aloha. We’re a big community of helpers and we’re all doing this together.”

According to Sullivan, volunteer help, financial support and corporate partnership are among the nonprofit’s top needs.

“We’re here and I think we're in a good spot because of many years of efforts and the generosity of our community,” she said. “This is a place of community by community, which is one of the best parts of Hawaiʻi, so we see that and weʻre grateful for that.”

In 2025, The Pantry nearly doubled its staff to now six full- and part-time employees, she said, adding that its annual operating budget is $1.3 million.

Email: jennine@thepantry.org; info@thepantry.org

Hours (by appointment only): 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Wednesday and Friday

The Pantry Jennine Sullivan Headshot

<title>The Pantry’s Jennine Sullivan named among USA Today’s Women of the Year</title>

The Oʻahu-based nonprofit’s executive director runs Hawaiʻi’s only online food pantry, serving thousands of families for free based on their needs. Sullivan was recently recognized among women nationwide who are making a significant impact in their local communities.

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