Discussion: Sen. Hirono Calls Bullsh*t On GOP’s Claims That Blasey Ford Is Unaccessible

It’s not ambiguous for many Hawaiians.

I used to self-identify as a Wisconsinite, but in the Scott Walker era, I have taken to saying “Midwesterner.”

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I agree!

Yeah, Hawai’ians got and continue to get a raw deal. But cut the commenter some slack. In context, the use of the word was not ambiguous and I don’t see the value in parsing this particular statement, which had no malicious intent.Clearly, there are some situations where it’s necessary to distinguish explicitly between residents of the islands and those whose ancestors inhabited it and who practice to some extent its culture. It’s also important to not offend folks unnecessarily, but I didn’t sense any intent to do that here.

Nor did I. It was and is just a bit of useful knowledge.

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Huh. I had thought that local was the term of art for ‘non-ethnically Hawaiian person who has lived in Hawaii their whole life’ and kama’aina was explicitly ‘long-term resident who moved to Hawaii as an adult’. But, as an occasional haole visitor (my in-laws were always kind enough to stress that I wasn’t a tourist, even though I was there on vacation), I may have gotten it a bit mixed up.