 Okay, welcome back. Welcome back to ThinkTech. And specifically, welcome back to ThinkTech Asia. I'm Jay Fiedel. Our show today is called The Hawaiian Diaspora. Which way will it go? Connections of Hawaii people with the old country in Asia. I'm going to talk about what do they do? They stay close or have they forgotten? Our guest for the show is, of course, our regular contributor, our informed citizen, if you will, Ray Tsuchiyama. Welcome, Ray. Great to be here again on this very exciting topic. Well, there's no going home again, you know. Local people don't have current connection with the old country, sorry. The old connections with families in the old communities back home, back in the old home are gone. Many have never visited the old country. They don't study the old language. Their kids don't. They don't follow the news. In fact, they don't know too much about the old country these days. Maybe food and some holidays survive, but not much more. This is not unlike other immigrant groups who distance themselves from the old country. My family, for example, wanted to get away from the old country as soon as they could and integrate, assimilate, all that. Should immigrants be more interested? You know, are they more interested in connecting back and holding on to connections? And what about the people in the old country? What do they think of those who have left and set up shop and had lives elsewhere? What kinship do they feel? Somehow, by the way, the Filipinos seem different. And I take this off Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown, just a day or two ago on CNN, where he visited a Filipino family in Manila. And you got the idea that OSWs, what do you call it, Overseas Workers, they always remain connected to the Philippines. And their plan was to make some money, send some money home, and then come back and spend their elder years with their families in the Philippines. So anyway, this show is a kind of amalgamation of two shows. One, Think Tech Asia, and the other, Life After Statehood, because they're inextricably intertwined, and the process has accelerated, whatever it is, in post-Statehood Hawaii. So we should see it in both contexts. So I find this really interesting phenomenon in Hawaii. I remember Filipino Fiesta when I first came. Right, that's so. One of the longest shows on TV in Hawaii. You're right. And the Filipinos stayed so close, they, you know, till today, I mean, people came here, generations ago, still close, they go back, they do pilgrimage back to the Philippines all the time, but they're the only ones, right? Well, you're correct that the Filipinos really like to be connected to the home country. You're absolutely right. And they're mostly from Eric North of Luzon. They're not Manila people. They're not city people. And in fact, they speak a language or call Ilecano. And that's different than Tagalog, which is spoken as a national language in the Philippines. But the Ilecano-speaking Filipino population is quite, quite, you know, extensive here, and they still watch a lot of the satellite TV that they bring over here. And they have a, they go back and visit their families. And, but there's a difference here compared to other immigrant groups is that remember the Pacific War, World War II, that ended Japanese immigration. Let's face it. And there were very few who immigrated after the war through Hawaii. Filipino immigration has continued to today. Maybe even enhanced by the war. That's correct. And so families get their aunts and uncles over, their grandparents over, their parents over, cousins and so forth. And so they really take care of their own and have their own extended families back in Hawaii. I hope it lasts for a long time. And if they follow the pattern of other immigrant groups, it won't last for a long time. Give it a generation or two and, you know, it'll disappear or at least deteriorate. Although I'd like to think that the Filipinos, you know, that they'll continue to longer than other groups have continued. The Chinese came over here to Hawaii in 1840, 1850. There hasn't been a lot of immigration from China lately. Well, no, no, except, except, you know, the PRC people. That's different. That's correct. And you're correct that the from the 1840s waves came for the sugar plantations. And they came here mostly men. Of course, they intermarried with local women, had great families and dynastic kind of thing. And they came from an area called Wandong near Hong Kong in southern China. So they were not Mandarin speakers. They were Wandong or Cantonese speakers. In fact, in the 1880s, there was a young boy who scored very high at Iolani school, Sun Yat Sen, who received an award from Kinkala Kawa. So there were immigrants there. They're studying in schools already. And there will be waves of immigration, you know, up to the war. And then you're correct that as late as the 60s, 70s, they were still teaching Chinese, but there were schools that taught Cantonese. That's not too useful these days. And then suddenly the rise of Mandarin-speaking mainland China came in the 90s and 2000s now. And you're correct that there's been a wave of young entrepreneurial mainland people coming over, some degrees from the mainland universities and so forth, or U.H. And they're creating businesses, but they're Mandarin-speaking, not Cantonese. Yeah, it's a different thing somehow. But you know, the Chinese who came over, they did well. They pooled their capital. And immigrant groups, at least some of them, tend to do that. I think the Vietnamese have also done that. They pooled their capital, going into business together. They've been, you know, they've gotten up to a standard of living very quickly in this country and integrated and assimilated themselves. You know, and so is that immigrant vitality is what you have. And sometimes it's driven by adversity back home. In fact, many times they couldn't stay home. They had to get out for one reason or another. And so the Chinese did very well. But you wouldn't find a Chinese person, at least not many of them, going back to live there. You wouldn't find a Chinese person who has active family relations right now. In fact, you find a lot of Chinese people have never been to China. Absolutely right. And I think, and this is a great paradox, because you're correct that they're three, four, five, six generations removed if their great-great-great-grandparents came to 1840s. Wow, that's a long period that they're separate from China. But they came from small villages in China. And going back there, it's not like going to Shanghai or Beijing. You know, that's where e-commerce or, you know, manufacturing, all kinds of things are happening. I mean, what is there to really interact with Hawaii? However, the paradox is there's many, many colleges, universities on the mainland and globally, and even schools are teaching immersion Mandarin Chinese. And that's where it's at for 21st century business. Yeah, that's true. But that's for global business. I mean, and you and I should go to those schools too, because that's very helpful. But it's not, they don't go back for cultural reasons. They don't go back to reconnect with the family. In fact, I don't think you can go home again. I mean, if your family left, if you left your family in 1850, it's really hard to find any strain of your family back. They never find them. And going back, you have to have a guide who speaks to local dialects. You know, there are Hakka dialects all over Guangdong. It's not even in Cantonese sometimes. But you're right, going, you can't go home again. It's really hard to find your gravestones, for example. Some do, but it takes, you know, ages. And then even if they did discover it, I don't think their children and grandchildren will, you know, continue that tradition of interaction with their old village. Yeah, it moves on. That country moves on without you. And you may have come over onto certain circumstances with a certain cultural cultural tone, if you will. But it changes. And where it might have been a very unpleasant place at the time you left, maybe that's why you left it, they survive, they do pretty well in China and Japan, they do very well. You know, I remember, though, you know, in the case of Ukraine, white Russia, where my family came from, you know, they were killed, killed in the war. They were attacked around the 19th century and even before. Yeah. Right. So you go back there, try to find some strain in your family. You won't find them, they were killed. And not only that, but people don't talk about it. You're going to hire somebody to investigate or take you around and try to find some strain in your family. They're not going to take you there. Because they could be the children of the people who attacked your family. Exactly, right, exactly, right. Part of the whole, you know, so it's a gray area back there. And it's very difficult because they've been going through strife and anti-Semitism and then collaboration. And, you know, as you said, that part of the history is quite dark. Now, China has been trying to repatriate people. I remember a story about five years ago about a researcher on the East Coast in a good school. And he had a, you know, a research laboratory in that school and doing well, famous and one thing or another. And the Chinese said, well, if you, the Chinese and mainland China, the PRC said, if you come back, we will give you a much bigger laboratory. We'll pay you a big salary. You'll be in great shape. And he came back. But he's one of many, I think. So the, you know, the Chinese not only have the rule of return of sorts, but they also encourage people to come back. I don't know if that's still the policy. But it was then. Well, I think that still is true. I think there are, but remember, the last 20 years, living in Beijing or Shanghai has improved dramatically. They have international schools there. They have, you know, restaurants and a boon. I mean, it's better living in the Hongmudo San Francisco, apartments that are, you know, world class, like living in Park Avenue and so forth. So living in China is no longer like living in the Cultural Revolution in the 60s. And you're absolutely right. They want to, Chinese are unique. They, even though your family's been in Hawaii or the US for, you know, multi-generations, they still consider you part of the Chinese family, part of the Chinese diaspora, less so in Japan, less so, you know, in other countries. I think India, China have that kind of unique and the Philippines also have a kind of a unique linkage to whatever you do, you are still tied in some way to the umbilical cord back to your home country. And in China, I know it puts a special responsibility on you. In other words, if you come back and get in trouble, as somebody who was, you know, his family came from China, you're going to be in more trouble than if you're not from China originally. If you're a Howley, for example, who goes back, you're not going to get treated the same way. You know, you, I guess you have great, they see it the way you have, they have, you have greater obligations to them to behave as the Chinese would behave than the, what do you call it, the, there's a word for it, the evil white devils. I'm not going to go into that, but you're right. But it there's risk involved because China, even today, is a communist country. And there were some who did go back in the 50s and 60s from the US, from MIT and Harvard and so on, did participate in the nuclear bomb program back in China. And when I was working for MIT, during the early 90s and into the 90s, when MIT started up interaction with alumni from MIT, there was a very, there were two groups, one that's younger and more vibrant, you know, who studied MIT, came back to China. The other one very kind of, in a shocking way, they went through the Cultural Revolution, they were stuck there since 1949. They were graduate, they remember Cambridge in the late 40s, but they could never go out again. And talking to them was like they lost their lives, you know, stuck in China. But again, the last 20 years and so they've been trying to get back researchers, you know, salaries higher, better labs. I mean, it's a great way to really participate. And they said, Well, please help us as a loyal, you know, patriot to help build this third world country, the first world superpower help us. That's the that's the plea from the I wonder if it's still like that, though. I mean, I think they've arrived at some place they've arrived at a place where they have loads of talent, loads of science, loads of very smart people who are being trained inside the country, and who are world class researchers. Do they need to bring back researchers from from the US? I'll give you an example. I knew a guy when I was working with MIT Charles, who was taking his PhD in physics. And then some years later, I heard of Sohu.com, one of the early, you know, internet providers and e-commerce government. And it was him who started up this this whole portal. And he became very, very wealthy and rich and so forth. But that entrepreneurial spark was something that he got at MIT. And he got venture capital to start it from people back in the US. I agree with you, you know, food on or Qinghua or Beijing University are very elite top schools. But you don't hear many startups, you don't hear of, you know, exciting new products coming coming out of China. There's those kinds of entrepreneurs have come from a lot of people who have studied in the US or abroad and come back to China. Yeah, it's a perfect mixture, actually. It's the immigrant mentality. It's a smart guy to begin with. He had good training earlier in his life. He comes to the US, and he finds he can he can be very confident. He finds he can learn he can do we can the American dream works for him. I would suggest the American dream works better for immigrants than it does for a lot of people who born in this country because they're not as well motivated. The immigrants always motivated. That's very true. And even in Silicon Valley, which we think is the, you know, ideal place for America that defines America, one of three startups is done by a Chinese or Indian immigrant. So that is America. But that's immigration. That's that really sparks the US. Now, the other thing is, when you think about it, there's a glass ceiling in the US, you don't find many Indian or Chinese CEOs of top Fortune 500 companies. Think about that one. But when if they go back to China or India, they may do better. Sure. You have the American experience behind them. That's right. They are global. They have engineering from top schools in the US. And so they're able to take a high tech company from Shanghai or Guangdong or Beijing out in the world much better. And so their cache, their value is exponential back in China rather than slaving away as an engineering director in Silicon Valley. Yeah, true. Let's slide away and a break. Okay. Aloha. My name is Joe Kent. And I'm the vice president of research at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. The Grassroot Institute is a public policy think tank. And we try to build a better economy in Hawaii. And you can see us on the TV show a Hanukkah Co on the think tech Hawaii broadcasting network every Monday at two o'clock. We'll see you there and let's build a better Hawaii together. Aloha. Hello. My name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show. I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well balanced attitude in life. Join me. Bingo. You did it again. You missed the break. You know, sometimes the breaks are the best part of the show. And I'm sorry to say you weren't here for it. So Ray, we'll be talking about the breaks we were making. We were beginning on the road to making the comparison between this whole dispute, this diaspora with China and maybe the Philippines and India as against Japan. It's different. The whole thing is different. Talk about it. Japan is different in that like China's Japanese immigrants were here during the 1860s and 70s. Flourished like my grandparents came here in 1907. Continued until the beginning of the Pacific War or Pearl Harbor. But during the 20s and 30s Japanese Americans had big families. They began to go to schools. They began to go to universities and then they went to war as part of the U.S. Army in Europe. Came back and then they became political agents of change during the 50s and 60s and created the state infrastructure of the state. We talked about the car and the plantation. We talked about how people you know got the idea they could do more than just work labor. And that and that the plantation was actually kind of a crucible that it was a seminal experience for them that they could get out do more than their grandfather had done. And I think by the time they realized that with the car and getting both the plantations getting active politically they were really going somewhere. They were part of the fabric of this country that great opportunities and they took those opportunities. And it was a very American life. Remember they learned English. If you read Danny Noe's autobiography Journey to Washington he didn't like studying Japanese. He wanted to run away from his parents who you know who would be two Japanese. He became a Methodist like his mother you know. Just nobody when I mean another Japanese American it's frequently we don't share the same religion but we share the same community of being Japanese Americans. We trust each other. It's a very tight community too. I mean it's when you compare it to other communities in the world. The Japanese community is very tight. If you're Japanese you're Japanese and every other Japanese in the world is part of your community and you never let go of that. That's right. But in Hawaii more so and but you're when you talk about interaction with the home country the Filipinos and so forth go back and forth. They lived there for several years come back. Not so with the Japanese Americans. They go for trips to you know the snow country or Kyushu or whatever they see things but they don't go back to learn more Japanese or there's a few but or participate in business. Entrepreneurs it comes from Japanese recent Japanese entrepreneurs. Now the only area that I can see a people going back are children or grandchildren of Japanese immigrants to Brazil, Argentina, Peru. They're back in Japan. The Japanese economy is much much better than Brazil. Oh yeah it's terrible and so the yen is much more attractive so they've come back and they work in factories they open up Peruvian restaurants. They've become the fabric of back in Japan. Interesting enough but except for very few who go back to I lived in Japan for 20 years and it wasn't a high-tech industry there. Again I think that's that's not a linkage that is very very strong. It's interesting. I mean I guess what you're saying is that life is better in the U.S. in general than it is in Japan. Right. And yet my limited experience in going to Japan I find Japan a very comfortable place. It's easy to get around it's easy to get what you need it's it's you know it's friendly and respectful and it's an easy life for a tourist anyway. Right but for to live there to speak Japanese all day long to really know some arcane cultural nuances it's a tough place for foreigners. Although there are many many foreigners who work and live in Japan. Now then we come to an area where people have moved to and I think we were talking about before the show Las Vegas. Yeah. And so there are many Japanese-made Hawaiians there's 70 thousand former Hawai'i residents living in Vegas. All kinds. All kinds. Every every Portuguese, Hawaiian, Philippine and so on. And when you think about it there's a and they call it you know the 9th island or whatever you know and so forth. There's some parallels of Hawaii. Remember it's a hospitality hotel industry. Yeah. Right. It's not a high-tech you don't have to go to a software engineer. So if you have a you know a union card here in Waikiki you can transfer that card Teamsters or whatever back in Vegas makes it easy. Yeah. So you can take the front desk and so forth and that you can get the same salary but remember there's no state income tax. There's no excise tax. And prices are lower. Right. Housing, food, you know gas everything's cheaper. You can get a bigger house. You can get your you know your parents or grandparents and aunties come over and live with you in Vegas. And they do. It's a reasonable decision to make. So there's a Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce Pokeball, restaurants. Kind of capilla. Yeah. Children are in Hula Halao schools. And Mary Marduk gets schools from Vegas now or Bakersfield or Oakland or something. It is an interesting diaspora. I mean they have where you have you know from my grandparents from Japan to Hawaii. Then they have one other leap to a you know transported culture, Hawaii culture in Vegas. Yeah. Well I mean what's interesting is I mean you talk about you know the diaspora into Las Vegas. But think about this. We're pumping out our young people all over the country. I wish I could say the world but I don't think that's true. We're pumping them. I wish I could say Asia but I don't think that's true. Seattle, San Francisco, New York, LA, New York. Big cities. Even Denver and a lot in Vegas. Yeah. That's our personal diaspora. That's Hawaii's diaspora. If you say 70,000 and the number may be much higher because they report the Hawaii licenses changed, exchanged for Vegas. But they may be living in Sacramento, LA or you know Bellevue and then moved to Vegas and they were originally from Hawaii. So the number may be much higher than 70,000. Yeah. Well I'll give you this thought though Ray. I mean we I think we've established with some exceptions that you know that over a certain number of generations after you leave a place and become an immigrant in another place the first place it goes off in this direction and you go up in that direction and you don't know where your family is and you may remember some of the cultural you know you know habits whatnot but you don't really stay in touch and that you know that may be different in degree but it's the same you know from Europe and Asia it happens and I suggest to you this is really a thought here I suggest to you the same kind of thing happens when we pump out our people to Las Vegas and to various cities on the mainland for a while they remember for a while they love the Lala right? They find an LL driving wherever they are you know but in a generation or two their kids won't have enough contact. Now the other group that we didn't talk about from Europe that when I tell people you know I was born in Japan I grew up in Hawaii then I lived on mainland and back to Hawaii in Tokyo and then come back to Hawaii the only people who can understand this Irish people yes because they have a lingering connection Irish Americans of Boston Chicago New York still go back and live a retiring Ireland they have young people their family stayed with them and they say and but again this is very funny in Boston the Battle of the Boyd in 1620 whatever that they lost to William Lawrence is much more in their minds than one or two you know and so they still celebrate St. Patrick's it's still strongly Catholic all these things the Irish are the most I think closest in some ways to my life and they understand it and they're still trying to revive Gaelic the Irish language you know and they still follow the Sinn Fein and all that election this week. That's right and there's more people of Irish and living outside of Ireland than in Ireland itself right and so and they're in Argentina Brazil Mexico the US everywhere in the world except in Asia some parts but that's the only group that I can see a analogy that they still connect in many ways. Well let me ask you this I mean there we do have some ability to I hope we have some ability to affect this process we I mean we you and me and and you know Hawaii don't we want to do something to have them stay in touch not only today and tomorrow but for years to come I remember when I was active with the Hightech Development Corporation they had a thing called Pow Hanna right and Pow Hanna they would if you ever attended that you know they would bring in people who had left went to the mainland and come back or people were visiting from the mainland and try to bond them up. Is there anything we can do to have a better result on this? That's a hard one and I think you're right that you know the idea of so many people talk about is how do we provide the most exciting opportunities so children will stay in Hawaii and work at great jobs and so forth rather than to leave and then after you spend some time you just can't come back again because you've invested so much about you know property and family and family. You have all kinds of other relationships on the mainland more so than here and the strangest thing about Vegas is how Vegas really moved was high school unions. Public high school unions are held in Vegas because it's cheaper to have a hotel room go there and so on. And when people live there. Exactly and rather and then you can get the gamble and you know have fun rather than renting a room at the Hale Kalani or Waukeshaariton. So that was what propelled it all. But going back to your point yes that they want to have this bond so that the people successful people in Silicon Valley comes out somehow can mentor people and somehow get them on track. This is a hard one. I mean I think the only way to me more and more is that the public school system and UH and others have to create coders and entrepreneurs at the same level as the Silicon Valley. That's the only way we're going to go through. Yeah yeah and what about going the other way. Is there any do we want I mean as a sort of a public policy matter do we want people who live in Hawaii who came from Asian countries mean all the Asian country. Do we want them going back do we want to encourage them to go back or is it just too late for that. Well I you know 20 years in Japan and Asia gave me a whole different outlook and I can't speak for anybody could do that but I would like to see others young people go out and travel and visit and work and find their roots. Yeah and find their roots also but but again Japanese still remains a language that people study because of anime you know manga lots of big influence and the ability to get ahead in Waikiki in the tourism industry so Japanese still is there's a driver for that language others like Portuguese have has disappeared. Let me close with one thing that just tickled my tickled my my my pink and that is in the New York Times recently on issues relating to North Korea they have been printing their articles in two languages of Korean as if they want Kim Jong-un to read the thing. So it's a flat world right that brings us to the end of our show we've enjoyed bringing to you I'm your host Jay Fidel this is Ray Tsuchiyama has been our guest and our we call informed citizen we've been talking about connections of Hawaii people with the old countries in Asia and much more about the diaspora thank you so much. From Tokyo to Vegas thank you very much.