Are We Losing Our Sense of Community?
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1994-04-23
Guests: Amy Agbayani (Director, Office of Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity, University of Hawaii); Robbie Alm (executive, First Hawaiian Bank)
Duration: 0:34:24
Note: music outro 543 s

[00:00:02] Randall Roth: Good morning. I'm Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise Radio Show. My guests this week are Amy Agbayani, director of student equity excellence and diversity at the University of Hawaii, and Robbie Alm, an executive with First Hawaiian Bank, who was a member of Governor Way Hey's cabinet for six years. Well Robbie, we advertise this show by asking the question, are we losing our sense of community? Maybe we better start by having you tell us how how you interpret that phrase, sense of community.

[00:00:30] Robbie Alm: For me, sense sense of community is is a mutual caring, uh, mutual respect, uh, a mutual reliance. Essentially, uh, us being able to count on each other, to be able to rely on each other. Uh, the Aloha spirit is is a is is a short hand that I think a lot of us use for that, but essentially it is that that sense of being able to look to each other and [unintelligible — audio glitch] feel that the people around you share some basic values.

[00:01:03] Randall Roth: Amy, is that how you interpret the term?

[00:01:06] Amy Agbayani: Yes, and I would, um, look at, uh, a feeling of inclusiveness so that everyone there doesn't feel like they're not part of something and that, um, everyone feels, uh, they belong, that people are comfortable, um, they they can share, um, problems or uh, their hopes with each other. And for me, a very important part of community is, uh, respect for the diversity that's there, so that, you know, [unintelligible — audio glitch] really include all the various types of people that are there, and that [unintelligible — audio glitch] to make them feel like they have to be just one kind of person, that there are multiple definitions of beauty, there are multiple definitions of excellence and quality, and, and, and, and the multiple sort of definitions of, uh, what's, um, appropriate.

[00:01:55] Randall Roth: Well Amy, if if that's community, are we losing it?

[00:02:00] Amy Agbayani: Um, I think that, uh, at every time in history, you know, you always wonder, is this, is this, uh, as as good as it can be. So, I don't want to think that in the way, you know, before I was born, kind of thing, that it was great then, because I think there were difficulties there, and we had struggles then, but right now I think a lot of people would feel that, uh, they must be something better that we can do, and that we have, um, I'm not sure that we're necessarily losing it, it and that it was a lot better before, but we definitely aspire to something much, much, uh, warmer and better than we now have. So I think that we, uh, want to build community, we want to improve our community and, I, I personally think that we probably have lost a lot.

[00:02:47] Randall Roth: It sounds like when you see a a glass with water in it, it's half full.

[00:02:52] Amy Agbayani: Yeah. And, uh, and I think that's also my sense of, uh, definition of what's okay is that it's very situational for me, uh, what what is, uh, appropriate.

[00:03:02] Randall Roth: And, and the reason I say that is I think there are a lot of people in the community, who, rather than saying it's good but we need to make it better, would say that, that it has slipped, that things aren't as good as as they once were. Uh, Robbie, do you agree with that view or or you look at it differently?

[00:03:19] Robbie Alm: I I think what I see is not so much that it's gotten that we're in danger of losing it, is that it's really gotten kind of lost and covered over with a lot of the other junk that's going on these days. [unintelligible — audio glitch] what happens is you see it, uh, during certain moments, like when a young child needs a donation of of blood or bone marrow tissue or or something like that, you see this community just erupt in a response, and then it's like everybody goes back and and, and back in I don't want to say into the hole, but but they pull back considerably, and we don't see it on a regular basis. So you know it's there. You know that sense of community's out there, but for whatever reasons we've let it get covered over. And a lot of the times in our day to day life, we don't live the life of being a strong community member, we live a very individual life, and we really wait for those special occasions to to let the spirit of community flow.

[00:04:16] Randall Roth: What are some of the possible reasons why it gets covered over?

[00:04:21] Robbie Alm: Oh, it it living in Hawaii is not easy these days, the the cost of living, the commute, the the housing problems, the working two jobs or even three jobs, the the arrangements that it takes to get your kids to school, get yourself to work, work a hard day, maybe some overtime, somehow get the kids through child care A plus, get them home, make a meal and and just getting through the day.

[00:04:48] Randall Roth: So economic pressures?

[00:04:50] Robbie Alm: Economic and social pressures. This is it it's real tough [unintelligible — audio glitch] find yourself focusing on other things other than yourself and your own family, uh, when we live in the the kind of society we live in today, and really when you're talking community, you're talking about having your focus outside of yourself, in a larger group.

[00:05:08] Randall Roth: Amy, other possible reasons why it gets covered over?

[00:05:11] Amy Agbayani: Well, I think, um, we always have depended on family, and you know, whatever measure we look at it, family now, you know, the definition of family has had to change because, you know, you have single parent families, and also the, um, economic situation is such that families no longer live next to each other, and there aren't three, four generation families, and you know, the old, um, uh, idea that it isn't, takes a whole village to raise a child, not just one family or one person. So that, um, the support that we've had in the past, uh, have, we haven't really come up oftentimes with, uh, alternatives. You know, we we used to not even worried as much about childcare. The problem always existed, but someone picked it up. If it was a sister, or an aunt, and so forth, but those kinds of things don't aren't readily available. So, um, so times are different from before. They they did have different pressures before, but, um, uh, we just don't have the, uh, normal, um, supports that we used to. Particularly say, new immigrants from, uh, the Philippines or Samoa or something, a lot of it is cultural differences and, uh, as well as economic.

[00:06:29] Randall Roth: In, uh, a chapter in the Price of Paradise Volume 2, uh, two of our authors talked about Aloha Spirit as possibly being an endangered species. And, um, I'd like to read a quote and get your reaction to it. They said, looking around, you note the loss of little mom and pop stores and neighborhoods, the advent of warehouse discounters, crowds of tourists on formerly remote beaches, traffic jams, and a general decline in civility, compared to life here 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Robbie, does that fit with your picture of how things are now?

[00:07:03] Robbie Alm: Having been born and raised in that, you know, like a lot of people I have a lot of nostalgia for those days.

[00:07:09] Randall Roth: Is that what that is reflecting, nostalgia?

[00:07:12] Robbie Alm: A lot of it because with that came almost automatically, a spirit of community. Uh, the days [unintelligible — audio glitch] that world helped build that. And in a sense, that's the challenge we've got today, is we're not going to go backwards to the mom and pop stores. Uh, we're not going to go backwards to a small population, we're not going to go backward to large places where there's remoteness [unintelligible — audio glitch] you don't see other people. Uh, we are bigger, things are a lot more complex, we are, you know, we're all watching the dollar and go going to the bigger stores. And that's why I think we have to work much harder at getting back to that degree of civility, that degree of of community feeling uh, that used to exist and that part we can recapture.

[00:07:59] Randall Roth: And when you say we have to work harder, you're talking about the entire community. But how does that happen?

[00:08:08] Amy Agbayani: Well, I was going to ask Robbie to start talking about, uh, [unintelligible — audio glitch] small group that's forming, um, just with the purpose really of trying to answer that, and um, and, um, actually how you do it is really step-by-step, individual by individual and person by person, trying to do something, and at times we have to do it as a collective. Uh, and, but at other times, you know, anyone, each person can participate in either making help make a sense of community real or making it worse. So, I think that there are, um, um, opportunities to actually take a personal act, and, uh, there are some problems that we can't possibly solve with a personal act. Like I, I can't possibly increase, you know, everyone's income or build houses all by my lonesome. Those kinds of things require governments, uh, policies and, and resources, but there are lots of areas that we as individuals can do and that, that's the kind of thing that Robbie and I and many other people, I think in this community are grappling with.

[00:09:16] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, and my guests this week are UH director of student equity excellence and diversity, Amy Agbayani, and First Hawaiian Bank executive, Robbie Alm. Well Robbie, tell me about this group.

[00:09:30] Robbie Alm: Basically, we we found ourselves as a as a group of 30 or so and and different people come different times, talking about what it would take to get back that sense of community. Uh, one of the things you you hear about these days is the sort of random acts of kindness movement and and what we thought is that we really didn't need a random set, we needed a very specific set of acts that really went to the heart of some of the irritations and the frustrations and the difficulties of living in in the life we live today, and that we set those forth as a set of acts that we would ask every member of the community to do. And they had to be acts that everybody was capable of, that it didn't take an income level or living in a certain place [unintelligible — audio glitch] any other sort of precondition, but just acts that that would bring people together as a community, get those widely spread out through the community and ask people to to take them on, to take a personal pledge to do them.

[00:10:21] Randall Roth: And these are acts that you're formulating now and you'll be promoting somehow sometime down the road?

[00:10:37] Robbie Alm: Well basically we have the list already and what we're working on now is how to spread them out through the community. What we're probably going to do is is seek a a lot of community leaders or or people who just have this same feeling to come, take a look at them, if they agree that this is a good list, to take list out and just spread them out in their community.

[00:10:58] Randall Roth: And the idea is that if each of us do it, that somehow or another that collective effort is going to make a difference.

[00:11:04] Robbie Alm: If thousands of people start taking these steps and see each other taking these steps and we're also going to ask everybody who's who's committed to doing so to put a bumper sticker on their car [unintelligible — audio glitch] will be part of this package, so everybody can look around and see everybody else that's taking the same step. And if you start to see thousands of those bumper stickers and thousands of of members of this community taking those kind of actions, we're going to get this realization of just how many of us really care about what's going on.

[00:11:35] Randall Roth: This mutual caring and and inclusiveness that Amy was talking about earlier. Start on the list, tell us what you've come up with so far.

[00:11:42] Robbie Alm: Well as I said, we tried to arrange them from both the specific irritations of modern life [unintelligible — audio glitch] things that we feel are are far more what what's really at the heart [unintelligible — audio glitch] our relationship with each other. The there are really 12, there are 12 of them. Leave places better than you find them, honor our elders, learn from a child, hold the door, hold the elevator, drive with courtesy, let others into traffic, plant something, help it grow, attend an event of another culture, return your shopping cart, go outside and enjoy Hawaii, share with your neighbors, pick up the litter you see, let your words leave a smile on other faces, and make your own list.

[00:12:29] Randall Roth: And we want to end with that because everybody out there probably has one or two or five more things that they'd like to do.

[00:12:37] Amy Agbayani: I think this list is really, um, some people might find it kind of too simple minded or, um, kind of vague, although they're very specific but general kinds of things. And, and, but we thought that these are items that nearly anybody can relate to. I mean, I don't know who doesn't have to go shopping, you know, I mean, you know, I don't order out and eat at a restaurant or something, you have to do, you can help in in these very simple, uh, ways. And what's really interesting about, um, the way the, uh, each of these items sort of came up was, you know, you get have a feeling of, aha! That's that really is good, you know, and something that it's not hard to do. And, um, and when you think about it, uh, it could really, um, make [unintelligible — audio glitch] real, um, sort of snowball effect, I think, you know, when when someone is nasty to you in traffic, it's so much easier to be uh, even more nasty, you know, but if someone's nice, you know, then, um, it's so much easier for the for the for that person to all also, you know, feel like the that they were treated well [unintelligible — audio glitch] they too can can treat others well.

[00:13:56] Randall Roth: Like maybe it's contagious?

[00:13:58] Amy Agbayani: That'd be great.

[00:13:59] Robbie Alm: Or or, you know, there are a couple intersections I go through where where there are lots of people who are cheating. I mean, they're coming up alongside and using inside lanes to to get ahead and, and I find myself some days almost consciously trying to block them off. And you know, be a, right, just being close to the car in front of me and saying, you can't cheat like that. And I know we a lot of us do that, and yet at the end of the trip home, I'm the one that's tense, you know, those people who are doing that aren't even remotely tense. You know, so [unintelligible — audio glitch] you went out into traffic and said, okay, my goal today is on the way home I'm going to let somebody in to traffic. I'm going to do something kind to somebody else, even if they don't deserve it. Even if they don't deserve it. If I go and do that, right, especially if they don't deserve it. It's so much nicer, it's easy to be nice to someone you like. I thought I was the only one out there insisting that people pay, you know, attention to the rules, right? It's not their turn to go in. Um, there's a word that I had never heard until a couple of months ago. Um, Mildred Kosaki introduced me to a word that I've heard a lot since then, communitarianism. And I don't know, vocabulary of the heart. I don't know much about that, but Amy, what does communitarianism mean and, and how does that relate to what your group is doing?

[00:15:12] Amy Agbayani: I don't know too much about it either, but I think the, um, the opposite to that is the rugged individualism that America, um, really really valued, you know, we won the West kind of thing, um, and the rugged, um, uh, cowboy, you know, out there by their lonesome, uh, solving everything. But actually when you look at it, you know, it wasn't one person that could possibly win the West, you know, it was them, uh, um, uh, helping each other out, you know, and and, uh, so I think it's the opposite to the things that we've oftentimes valued a individualism and even at the university or in the public schools now, right now, we we try and say that, uh, you know, this individual competitiveness actually doesn't really make for actually excellent teaching or excellent students, but that helping each other, which at one time you could have seen as cheating or something, but helping each other, working together, collaboration, um, that's the thing that, that, that really, um, will, will come up with the best solution, for example. We they've done lots and lots of research for example that shows that separate individuals working alone have, um, less possibility to come up with good solutions, or even as not as fast even as groups, heterogeneous groups, participating and collaborating together can come up with some solutions. So it's, um, it's an acknowledgment really that we all have a variety of skills and that we can really do better if we work together.

[00:16:50] Randall Roth: Robbie, what's the ultimate goal? If the short term goal is to get lots of bumper stickers out there and get people thinking about this and actually engaging in some of these random acts of kindness, Systematic acts of kindness. Systematic, there we go, systematic acts of kindness. Um, what's the the long term goal?

[00:17:10] Robbie Alm: The long term goal is that return to the spirit of community that I think that quote that you talked about earlier when when our uh when our sense of trust in each other and faith in the community and faith in ourselves as a group rather than in our ourselves as individuals was was something that was a part of everyone of us. It was something we almost took, we really did take for granted uh that that was just what it was to be in Hawaii and what a low a spirit was. The long range is there wouldn't have to be a list. That our acts would be so community-focused and so unselfish as a general rule that we wouldn't have to look around and say are we losing the a low a spirit? How come it's not fun to be in Hawaii? How come it doesn't feel good right now? That that those kind of questions would never even arise.

[00:18:03] Amy Agbayani: Well we had, um, a nice discussion on the concept of aloha. Um, and, um, sometimes you know, we many of us who think of it, and about the commercial aloha that that we see in tourism, sometimes in our tourist promotions, but really the deep meaning of aloha and and the very personal way we can participate in that is the kind of thing we want to encourage, and definitely the indigenous Hawaiians, uh, had that sense of aloha. And I think many cultures, many other cultures also have something very, very similar to that and I think that, um, what we want is, is people to really, uh, live aloha, that's the uh, That's our phrase, live aloha. You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth and my guest this week are UH director

[00:19:00] Randall Roth: student equity excellence and diversity Amy Agbayani and first Hawaiian Bank executive Robbie Om. a minute ago, Robbie, you referred to a quote, and that's something that I shared with you before we started this show, and I think what I might do, if if you'll allow me, is to take a minute and and read that to our listeners. It's something that was written to me by a fellow who described himself as a long-time rural resident of Hawaii, who's now in his 70s. His letter reads, "Allow an old man to list elements of a paradise remembered. Then, encourage the young to define a future for themselves, before they become entrapped in a present that seems bad and getting worse. For me, paradise was a cluster of homes, so modest and similar as to preclude envy or theft.

[00:19:46] Randall Roth: It was a row of slippers on the porch that marked each home as a shrine to values which emerge within a nuclear family, concerned for children and their future. It was the unlatched screen and open door, which affirmed a faith in one's fellow man. It was the kitchen garden, which declared some small measure of independence from market forces, and produced in season, things to be shared with neighbors. It was the neighborhood store, where profit motives required serving customers with the consideration and respect which ensured their return. It was a society in which minimal public services and regulations were sufficient to our needs. What do you think of that, Robbie?

[00:20:26] Robbie Alm: That's exactly the kind of thing that that at least in spirit, we need to recapture. If we have to lock our door, there's nothing that says we can't share with our neighbor. And then we can't reach out. If if there are some things that that um, you know, come at us because of the bigness of of where we are and and the fact that we live so far, we work so far from our homes, uh many people. There are lots of, there's lots of that that's that's more a matter of our respect for each other, and our concern, and our care for each other, than specifically relating to institutions which may not exist anymore.

[00:21:15] Randall Roth: So someone who sees the glass half empty might be pointing to the fact that we have to lock our doors and we have these big warehouses and impersonal sort of world, whereas Amy, you're perhaps saying, hey, we can achieve that triumph of the spirit if we get back to these basic values.

[00:21:22] Amy Agbayani: And we can do it, um, by ourselves and we can do it, uh, right now. We don't have to wait until, um, you know, a group tells us to do it even are uh like this group, or um government It's not It's not government's job to do this. And it's not business's job. And um, so I think the last um, um item there is make your own list. It's really what it's all about.

[00:22:00] Robbie Alm: And and we don't need anybody, any leader, politician coming on a white horse to sort of rescue us, as a society, we need each of us to individually step forward, and take the acts necessary, to start to rebuild that. It's an individual responsibility. It's an individual choice. And that's what we're really saying with all of this is we need the individuals in this community to step forward.

[00:22:16] Randall Roth: So, in addition perhaps to trying to provide affordable housing or better jobs or whatever which go to the standard of living issue, that this goes to the quality of our lives.

[00:22:27] Amy Agbayani: And we think it'll impact public policy, it'll impact all those big questions as well. You know, sort of the little acts are the uh the things that the the glue actually to the community. And uh big public policies and uh government programs and um, and uh public issues, you know, uh those kinds of things, we also must simultaneously address, but if we did it with this kind of approach, we think that the solutions to even those big problems could be improved.

[00:23:02] Randall Roth: Robbie, we just have about a minute left. Would you read again, the list of acts that each of us can do, and then maybe tell people who are interested in this, how they might be able to get some additional information?

[00:23:14] Robbie Alm: Sure. The acts are leave places better than you find them, honor our elders, learn from a child, hold the door, hold the elevator, drive with courtesy, let others into traffic, plant something, help it grow, attend an event of another culture, return your shopping cart, go outside and enjoy Hawaii, share with your neighbors, pick up the litter you see, let your words leave a smile on other faces and make your own list. And we really would like people to come forward and and indicate their interest, uh, I have a phone number, 595-8397 where people can leave messages, their name, an address where we can get in touch with them. And if they want to fax something to us, 595-6787. Again, the phone number is 595-8397, and the fax line is 595-6787.

[00:24:13] Randall Roth: We'll leave those numbers here at Hawaii Public Radio, so if someone didn't have a chance to write those down, they can call Hawaii Public Radio later on and get that information. Amy, anything to to add in closing?

[00:24:25] Amy Agbayani: Well, I will try and do, uh, at least one of those things today.

[00:24:30] Randall Roth: That's great. My guest this week were UH administrator Amy Agbayani and first Hawaiian Bank executive Robbie Om. This week's show was produced by Suzy Roth with technical assistance from Jeff Aylardi. Next week my guest will be Ira Rotter and David McLain. Ira is co-chair of the Green Party in Hawaii and author of Green Hawaii. David is an internationally known scholar and economist. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha. This program is produced by the Consortium of 72 Price of Paradise authors in cooperation with Hawaii Public Radio. The Price of Paradise is a best-selling two-volume book series that has become a must read for every concerned citizen of Hawaii.

[00:25:21] Randall Roth: Please tune in next week when Randall Roth and his guests will take on another question of importance to listeners in Hawaii. Cassette copies of this program are available from Hawaii Public Radio for $10 by calling 955-8821. For a listing of past shows and guests, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Price of Paradise Radio Show, Hawaii Public Radio, 738 Kaheka Street, Honolulu, 96814.