In her recent commentary, “Todd Graham’s Unforgivable Sin? He Didn’t Understand Our Culture,” Lee Cataluna offered a number of points I agree with regarding the significance of Hawaii’s culture to its people.

However, I have to disagree with her argument concerning an “emphasis on cultural understanding,” which she maintains is “practical.”

Cataluna wrote:

Cultural understanding should be mutual among different groups, whether racial, ethnic or Indigenous. While we can give priority to local, Hawaii or Native Hawaiian cultures, we should also make an effort to understand and respect the cultures of others who are not from here or who are different from us, although with obvious exceptions, such as racists and religious extremists.

It’s much too easy to tell others to move elsewhere, to go back to where they came from or, much worse, to stop practicing their culture, which is what enables them to be who they are.

In this regard, I’m thinking about the widespread hostility toward Micronesians or Compact of Free Association citizens, who can be said to share Pacific Islander culture with several such groups in Hawaii, including Native Hawaiians. Nonetheless, Micronesians are subject to extreme forms of systemic racism, including racial profiling and so-called ethnic humor, which makes them the butt of jokes maliciously told about them.

Micronesians, Filipino and Korean immigrants, who began arriving in significant numbers after passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, used to be the primary targets of xenophobic racism. In addition, Hawaii has a long history of racism and violence against newcomer haoles from the “mainland.”

Besides those not from Hawaii, cultural understanding also needs to be extended to those who were here first — Native Hawaiians. Based on their cultural traditions, including chants, moolelo stories and myths, they have established and asserted the sacredness of Mauna Kea, which underlies their opposition to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope.

Cultural understanding should be mutual among different groups, whether racial, ethnic or Indigenous.

Nonetheless, understanding and respect for their cultural traditions, values and practices appear to be in short supply among most Hawaii residents who support building the TMT. Since opposition to the TMT doesn’t seem to be working in their own homeland, should we then tell Kanaka Maoli to move somewhere else, such as Las Vegas?

We are officially the Aloha State, and we like to emphasize the aloha spirit in how we relate to others, and it is certainly valued as a major feature of island culture. I fully agree with Cataluna that “there’s something about these islands that brings out the best and the worst in people,” which isn’t something one can readily say about other places — consider Los Angeles or Chicago.

While not ignoring the worst in us (e.g., persisting inequality, racism and discrimination), let’s focus on the best of us, on what can bring us together to work toward the Hawaii we value and which has a place for those who are culturally different.