Creating the Good
Community:
BYU-Hawaii and the
Destiny of La`ie
Vernice
Wineera
(September 2, 2004 Thursday10:00am Cannon Activity Center)
Early in 1955, Edward L. Clissold, Chairman of the
Continuing Committee overseeing the planning of the Church College of Hawaii,
and President of Oahu Stake, walked into a vast field of sugar cane carrying a
long pole with a rag attached to the end. President Clissold
stood in the cane on what would be the site of the future McKay Foyer, and
waved the pole high overhead above the tall cane. At the outer edge of the
field, by what is now the circle at La`ie Elementary
School circle, Paul Ijima started up his machine,
sighted on the makeshift flag, and bulldozed his way through the sugarcane
“digging out what eventually became Kulanui Street.” (Baldridge
manuscript, p.6)
That same year, at 11:00am on February 12, President David O. McKay walked that
dirt track and stood on a temporary platform raised above the sugarcane for the
groundbreaking of the land and dedication of the future campus. He blessed the
faculty who would teach here, and the students who
would study and graduate from here and go back out into the world. In the
dedicatory prayer he blessed the future visitors who would come here—and his
words of blessing were prophecy: “that this college, and the temple, and the
town of La`ie may become a missionary factor,
influencing not thousands, not tens of thousands, but millions of people who
will come seeking to know what this town and its significance are.” (Law, p.69)
News reporters at the time estimated one thousand people present in the
clearing within that sugarcane field. Few of them could have envisioned many
millions of visitors coming to the tiny village of 1955. Nor could they have
imagined the significance of this out-of-the-way place or why it would pique
the interest of so many people from afar. At that time,
Three years later, December 17, 1958, in his dedicatory prayer of the completed
campus, President McKay petitioned the Lord: “Bless this institution that it
may hold the respect of sister educational institutions and wield an influence
throughout the world for good to all educational circles. To this end, Father,
continue to bless…the president of this institution, [and] his associates in
the presidency. Continue to uphold them and inspire them. Bless the faculty,
the deans, the student body, and all associated with this center of learning.
Give the instructors the ability to see clearly the discernment between truth
and error that they may be successful in refuting the…pernicious doctrines that
would destroy the free agency of man, … and weaken, and perhaps destroy, faith
and belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ.” (Law, 257)
The foundation of the
Looking back at the prophetic visions that brought about each of these three institutions,
we cannot deny that the Lord has a purpose and a destiny for our small
community. Our task today, and for at least the coming academic year, is to
examine ourselves through the prism of the prophecies that have shaped our
university, its sister institutions, and our community of La`ie.
It is to our benefit to mark those things that need attention, effort, even hard work, to improve what needs improving, to sustain
and assist those who are being left behind or left out altogether from the
benefits that the Church, our institutions, and our community provide.
Throughout human history, communities have formed for various purposes. Social
history is concerned with values and goals and how groups within the society
interact with each other. Political theory looks at power structures in the
community, how they work across group boundaries, and how they can be changed
for the good of the whole. Community planners design spaces and structures to
best facilitate human interaction, hence the planners’ concern with “making
places humane” by ensuring that the human dimension of towns and communities is
not lost in the drive toward building marketplaces for economic gain. In these
ways, then, we form communities and construct institutions—for protection, as
in a City of
Social anthropologist, Anthony P. Cohen’s approach to the study of the
community is interpretive and experiential. He sees the community as a cultural
field with a complex of symbols, believing that community exists first, in the
minds of its members, in the meanings that people attach to the symbols of
their community as well as to its boundaries. “This reality of community,” he
writes, “is expressed and embellished symbolically…. (Cohen 98) People construct community
symbolically, making it a resource and repository of meaning, and a referent of
their identity.” (Cohen 118)
What are those elements that symbolically reference our community? What
are the symbols of our community? Certainly the temple, the university, and the
PCC are all rendered visible by their physical structures, but their invisible,
symbolic, meanings are more powerful. It is the idea of the temple, the idea
of the university, the idea of the PCC, and the idea of La`ie that shape our attitudes, behaviors, and
identities as we “reside” within them. Along with that, the natural landscape of
La`ie community shapes our idea of it. The beautiful Ko`olau mountains, the wide stretch of the blue Pacific
Ocean, and the lush land between these two natural boundaries together form the
image in our minds of our landscape, our home, our Place. Island-encircling
Some of the realities of our community health and well-being may be surprising
to us, but we must face them, nevertheless, and we must do so with a commitment
to effecting change. The most recent U.S. Census publicly available was
recorded in the year 2000.
Here is the report of our
community:
Image 1: Demographics
877 La`ie residents are foreign
born.
1,356 over the age of 5 speak a language other than English
at home.
Image 2: Racial Makeup
The largest racial group was Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders,
followed by White and mixed race
individuals.
Image 3: Housing
In 2000 there were 107 vacant rental units --
I would venture to guess that these are no longer vacant
today!
This year, 2004, 800+ BYUH students are also renting in the
community.
Image 4: Cost of Rental Housing
Most rental units in our town cost
between $750—$1,499 a month
Image 5: Families
In the year 2000 women headed 90 family households—either as
single mothers, single grandmothers, or in other roles.
Image 6: Population – (by age)
Children under the age of 18 comprise the largest segment of
our population.
More than half our population (54%) is 24 years old or
younger.
Image 7: Income
The median income for females was
$13,492 lower than for males.
The Last Image 8: La`ie Poverty
80 families living in poverty in our community is 80 too
many!
702 people in La`ie living below
the poverty line is heartbreaking.
These realities
exist in spite of tremendous contributions being made from within the
community.
From my own experience working at the Polynesian Cultural Center, I know that
its contribution to the local community is exceptional, and I can testify to
you that it is the institution that has almost single handedly fulfilled
President McKay’s prophecy regarding the millions of people who would find
their way to La`ie. Let’s take a look at the
contribution the PCC makes to our community:
1st Image:
PCC, October 1963—August 2004:
Over this 41-year period:
Total visitors to PCC = 31 million people
And 14,000 BYUH students have paid for their education by
working at the Center.
The income to the University in student wages & other
support totals $140 million over these four decades.
2nd Image:
PCC, Employees, August 2004:
BYUH student employees: 700 (approx)
Full-time employees: 286
Community / high school / part-time / on-call: 371
Total full and part-time employees: 1,357
The Last Image: PCC,
Projected 2004 Activity in Local
For this year alone:
More than $16 million in salary/wages/benefits to full-time
community employees,
most, if
not all, of these are La`ie residents.
More than $8 million in commissions to sales agents (on or
off-island)
More than $25 million purchases of other goods and services
from
More than $1.1 million general excise taxes paid to State of
More than $5 million average capital expenditures
(construction/equipment)
Total this year: $55.1 million == PCC will contribute
to the economy of our state and our community.
In our community we serve in many roles. We may very likely live next door to
each other on the same street, work together at the same institution, worship
together in the same ward, and even be related to each other by marriage or
other family connection. Our children and grandchildren play soccer or baseball
or basketball together, and these connections cross boundaries of economics and
culture. Pacific people live and interact in groups, extended families,
villages, and tribes, and within the group the spirit of volunteerism,
contributions, and sharing of resources ensures the well-being of its members.
The elderly are treated with deference. They are referred to as Auntie or
Uncle, both titles being respectful terms in
When BYUH students congregate in Foodland wearing
skimpy swimsuit tops and towels or lavalava about
their waists, they appear to have no respect for the local community. If you
live off-campus, students, shouting and partying through the night in a
neighborhood of families is disrespectful of them—and of yourselves. When these
things are discussed, the single most repeated observation from local residents
is this issue of “having no respect”.
Other issues are
more serious: editorials in this week’s local newspapers headlined: “Third Year
in a Row, More Live in Poverty.” “More
On this same issue of poverty in Hawaii, a University of Hawaii Social Sciences
Public Policy Center spokesperson observed: “There are a lot of
tourist-industry jobs that don’t pay that well, and what we might be seeing is
a significant number of working poor.”
(The
Also in La`ie, rental housing is at a crucial level of concern.
Some of the problems include absent or uncaring landlords who rent sub-standard
houses at high rents, and landlords renting to students for higher group rates
than single families can afford. This shuts out the needy families in the
community – those with young children who are living on basic wages. Very
concerned about this situation, BYU-Hawaii administrators are taking a
proactive approach by focusing on better student enrolment management and
on-campus housing plans to help alleviate problems of overcrowding in La`ie’s rental housing.
The employment situation in La`ie is also very
challenging. Community members must compete with newly arrived mainland
students, faculty wives, and even service missionaries for many jobs, both
skilled and unskilled, with the town’s three major employers.
In the area of education the costs of a BYU-Hawaii education, and
its academic requirements, place it beyond the reach of many La`ie people. An adult community member needing a job would
greatly benefit from community outreach courses in basic computer skills,
business management, office management, and other areas suitable to BYU-Hawaii
or PCC employment.
A case in point here is the announced construction of the multi-million dollar
hotel to be built adjacent to both this campus and the PCC. While news reports
cited some 400+ job opportunities, realistically, these jobs will go to those
who are qualified to hold them. What would it take for HRI, the PCC and the
University to attach to the project a Marriott training program for potential
local applicants that can provide the certification necessary to successfully
secure one of those jobs when the hotel opens? This would be a proactive way of
ensuring good community relations while providing opportunities for people
often shut out of other jobs.
Persistent challenges in the community include crime, growth, and outside
forces.
Kava drinking and drugs,
particularly ICE, lead to burglaries, violence, family breakdown, and at risk
children, and uncontrolled growth leads to overcrowding in community homes,
infrastructure problems, lack of basic services such as street lights,
sidewalks, safe paths and community recreational facilities. We cannot think
that the high-priced developments of the north shore will not impact upon our
small community. Other forces of outside influence have attempted to erode the
foundation of our town in the past. There was a time not so long ago when a
group of Anti-Mormons took up residence in La`ie and
became very active in protesting the Church at key locations in the community.
Recent gang-like behavior and violence fueled in large part by the gap between
the haves and have nots—between some La`ie youth and students—must be addressed. In doing
so we must understand that 2,400 students from the mainland and foreign
countries moving into a community as small as ours where they partake of the
rich blessings of a high quality education, and University activities in clean,
beautiful facilities, can seem an enormous divide for youth growing up in a
crowded neighborhood without access to any of these things. The definition of
the term “interdependent” is “to be mutually dependent” – and here’s a
definition: “The mission of one institution can be accomplished only by
recognizing that it lives in an interdependent world with conflicts and
overlapping interests.”
(Jacqueline Grennan
Wexler, The American Heritage Dictionary)
Many questions bear asking:
Or is its
distinguishing factor the Church?
Our physical
community of La`ie is bounded by the sea and the
mountains – but a symbolic boundary, the
On October 15,
1992, President Arthur Haycock spoke at a campus devotional. One of the many
wonderful experiences he shared was this: “I was present when President David
O. McKay broke ground in the middle of the cane field right out here in front
of the McKay Auditorium. We cut down the sugar cane in order to do that, and he
broke ground out there where the flags are flying….and speaking of the faculty,
President McKay said, ‘No man or woman can teach at this college who does not
have in his heart an assurance, not a mere belief, but an assurance that God
has had his hand over this entire valley of La`ie.’”
President Haycock continued, “in the sixty years that
I’ve been here, I know that to be true and I have seen his handiwork in all
that has been accomplished.” (BYU-Hawaii
Archives)
In the year 2000, we celebrated the sesquicentennial of the Church in
May I conclude with a few words from President Gordon B. Hinckley, our beloved
living prophet. In the year 2001 he wrote: “‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ We speak of the
fellowship of the Saints. This is and must be a very real thing. We must never
permit this spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood to weaken. We must constantly
cultivate it. Simply put, we must be friends. We must love and honor and
respect and assist one another. Wherever Latter-day Saints go, they are made
welcome, because Latter-day Saints are mutual believers in the divinity of the
Lord Jesus Christ and are engaged together in His great cause. We are one great
family, eleven million strong.”
(Gordon B.
Hinckley, Stand a Little Taller: Counsel and Inspiration For Each Day Of The
Year, p. 112.)