 Aloha and welcome to Tough Love with Loretta Chan, where Hawaii's changemakers talk tough on the island they love. Our first guest for the inaugural episode was born in Kauai, raised on Oahu and is a public interest attorney. She was formerly a therapeutic foster parent, was elected to the board of education where she served not one but two terms. She is appointed to the Civil Rights Commission and currently serves on the boards of ACLU Hawaii and Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. She's also the business owner of affordable quality apartment rentals, president of the Iwamoto Family Foundation, maybe now it's beginning to sound unfamiliar, can you guess? She's also recognized as a champion of change by President Barack Obama in 2013, I mean not just done yet, just last year Newsweek listed her as one of 50 need to know pioneers for LGTQ rights. I am a total fan girl, I want to sign up for your fan club, please welcome Kim Koko Iwamoto. Thank you so much Loretta, I really appreciate the opportunity to share this inaugural experience with you. Thank you so much for being a member. Congratulations. Oh thank you. So how did you come to this point to do this show? Actually you know, thank you for asking, I mean I'm new to the island, I moved here in 2015 and I decided that it's either I could just stay home and just twiddle my thumbs and then not really know the island ever, but I could put myself out there, get to know people, get to know strong independent women, men alike. And one of the things that I did was I threw myself into a project where I started to write a book. That's right. That's right. Amazing. So congratulations. It's just you having a launch party in November 1st. First, that's right. You're coming right. Yes I am. Thank you. I already got my ticket. It's inspiring women of Hawaii. That's right. Thank you for doing this. I started reading some of the blurbs from it and it's amazing. Oh thank you. I feel like I know half of the women in this book. Oh sure you do. And it's so great to get to know them in a more intimate, deeper way and they really opened up to you. Yeah. It's a testament to how I think comfortable you make people feel and that's how I felt when you... That's right, so the perfect segue for me to say that one of the 24 women that we highlighted is obviously Kim Coco Iwamoto and I had this amazing conversation with you. I remember going to your home and you just opened up your home and your life to me and shared with me a life story. So I just feel like you're one of those people that I truly admire and respect because you speak truth to power. You would tell the emperor or empress, he or she has no clothes, as you would tell me as well if I mess up and just go ahead. But yes, please do. But let's get right to... Oh, but you know what? Let me just ask you. Fabulous pictures of you at Pride Parade last weekend. Yes. So I was so honored to serve as Grand Marshal of the Honolulu Pride Parade that took place here in Waikiki last Saturday. So thank you very much to the LGBT Legacy Foundation for bestowing that honor onto me and for all of the hundreds of voluntary hours and the resource dollars that it takes to make that kind of community event happen. And I think you saw in the picture that one of the sponsors was Bank of Hawaii and they let me kind of nestle into their contingent. They had a lot of great energy and we'll talk more about them in the program, I think. Right. And also, I mean, you are our first guest and you are integral to... I mean, just my psyche, my thought process was, I'm an outsider, I'll always live in this liminal gray space, the insider-outsider. But for me to get to know the islands better, I also wanted to ask some tough questions, right? Right. And that's why I brought you in because I feel like you would speak truth to power and we chatted on the phone while actually we were texting. And you shared there was a couple of issues that bug you, your three big bug bears that we're going to talk about. Well, actually, I mean, so the way I kind of interpreted your kind of putting a topic out there, I thought what are three issues that people aren't really comfortable talking about? That's right. You know, that they're not comfortable articulating or challenging. And so, again, those three issues for me were paying a living wage, specifically in the nonprofit sector. Also, you know, I recently became a mom like four years ago. And so I had to deal with vaccinations. And so looking more into what's the mandatory vaccination schedule, that's my daughter and I, my daughter, Rory. And so, you know, I had to navigate the whole health requirements for school, et cetera. And then finally, I want to speak about a little bit about the layers of racism involved in the way people are responding to native Hawaiians, Kanakamali, protecting their land and their culture. Right. So let's get right into it. I mean, you shared that one of the things you really want to talk about was the hyper-crisis of paying poverty wages, right? That's right. While addressing poverty in Hawai'i. Let's jump right in. Yes. So I mentioned Bank of Hawai'i was a sponsor for Pride. They also were a sponsor for the Aloha United Ways Alice Report, which basically looked at families in Hawai'i and how many of them are living paycheck to paycheck. And really, what is the true minimum wage they can earn in order to survive? Because as you know, Hawai'i has the highest rates of homelessness in the nation. Yeah. So how is that happening? And so obviously, if you're not getting paid a survival wage, you end up potentially in the streets, right? So the Alice Report basically identified, and this was done two years ago, so it's a little dated. So it was $14.06 an hour. Hawai'i's minimum wage right now is $10.10. So I've been working with other community members to get the minimum wage in Hawai'i raised. I personally, given all the studies from MIT, our current trajectory of cost of living in five years, because the way minimum wage increases usually roll in, roll up over time. So I'm going for $22 personally an hour. That's what I think people need to survive in five years. Other people are going for $17. Right now in front of the ledge, I think the bill that hopefully will pass or could pass is $15 an hour, which will put many families above the survival wage identified through the Alice Report. And again, you can look at the Alice Report by going to the Aloha United Way website, and they have the report, they have synopses, but you know, back to when I was on the Board of Education, so this problem of short changing and not looking at true costs of delivering services, especially social services like education, you know, services around mental health, services for the homeless, services that affect families. A lot of times we don't represent the true cost of funders. And so in the case of public education, the Department of Education puts their budget together and then they deliver it to the Board of Education, and then we approve it and we send it on to the legislature. And so in Hawaii, the legislature is the only body that funds public education. So when I served on the Board, I asked the superintendent, is this the true cost? Is this really how much it costs to deliver quality education in Hawaii? They said, no, this budget's put together based on how much we think we can get from the ledge. Wow. I'm like, well, then you're just feeding into the dysfunction. That's right, because I was surprised to learn, I mean, from these reports and from you too, that the DOE full-time employees have paid so little that their kids qualify for free and reduced lunch. I mean, that's my heart. I mean, I'm an educator. It really breaks my heart. It does. I mean, we're not speaking actually about educators specifically, but the DOE system includes, you know, people custodians, technicians, education assistants, so it includes a lot of people. But yes, there are indeed, and I did verify this with the superintendent of schools at the time, that indeed, there are full-time employees of the DOE whose own kids qualified for free and reduced lunch. Basically the state is participating in perpetuating poverty within our state, and I don't think that's the right... Yeah. So let me just jump in and ask you. I mean, you said that right now you're working to try and raise it to 22. Well, I mean, I'm advocating for 22, understanding that. Exactly. So what does it look like? I mean... A bill almost made it through this last year for $15 an hour, but then there was some legal shenanigans that happened, or technical shenanigans that happened that kind of killed the bill. And so... But there is an opportunity to bring it back, and I have to say ironically, even though the legislature killed this minimum wage bill, they gave themselves a raise. Yes, they raised their minimum wage, and I talk about their salaries as a minimum wage also. Because no matter how little bit of work the representative might do, they can just like show up to half the meetings, they can do very little in their community, and they would so get paid the same amount. You know, I mean, so it's really a slap in the face to all the families who are paying their salaries, giving them a raise while they're struggling. And so that's why the community is really rallying together on this issue. On the other side to that, one of the pushback I heard was from the nonprofit sector. And this is why I wanted to address them head on. So myself and Tanya, my friend Tanya Yamaraka from Hilo, we coordinated a panel at the Hano Conference, and Hano is a Hawaiian Alliance for Nonprofit Organizations. And their director, Alisa, was kind enough to let us put this panel together, and we invited people from the nonprofit sector, people who do fundraising, and also grant makers were part of our panel. And of course, the audience was full of nonprofit board members, directors, and staff. So we're able to really speak about the options and solutions that are out there. So that you actually set a policy to pay a living wage, was there anything that changed? No, so what's the challenge is that, you know, a lot of the nonprofits, I think there's nonprofits who get state funding, right, they have state contracts, and there are nonprofits that do mostly fundraising through personal or grant foundations, et cetera. And what we heard from one of the foundations, and for myself, as a Reni Uemoto Family Foundation, we do not penalize applicants just because they're paying a living wage. We do not think, oh, you're being wasteful with our money. Especially, and I think I really challenge those nonprofit organizations that have any kind of mission statement that indicates that they are really there to uplift their communities with the economic aspect. And if those organizations themselves are paying poverty wages, you can achieve your mission by perpetuating the problem you're trying to solve. I think that's a problem. And I think they need to own up to that responsibility. Again, one of the problems is that just like the GOE, not asking for true costs from the legislature, a lot of nonprofits are doing that, too. They're submitting bids to get contracts that are way too low, that don't really say this is how much it costs, and they're underbidding each other, and that's a problem. So that needs to... That's like a bit to the floor. But I have to say that, you know, my family's business is Robert's Hawaii Tours, and now it's employee-owned, but they have government contracts with student transportation. They do not ask permission from the state to pay people the salaries they need to pay. If there's a shortage of bus drivers, then you got to pay wages to recruit them to work for your company so that you can fulfill the contracts to bus the students to school. You got to pay those wages, whatever they are, and so those companies are still making a profit. So the nonprofit sector should not feel like it should pay poverty wages just because they're delivering a good service. That's right. I'm with you, 100%. But for now, we are going to go for a break pretty soon, and then when we come back, we're going to speak to Kim Coco, and this time we're going to talk about her being a mother and how that's like being mother to Rory, and of course, segue to her other topic that she's very passionate about, which is on mandatory vaccinations. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my book, which is also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, achieving and sustaining success, and finding greatness. If you're a student, parent, sports or business person, and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you, tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 a.m. as we go beyond the lines on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Keisha King, host of At the Crossroads, where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Don't you join us on ThinkTechHawaii.com or on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel. Our conversations are real, relevant, and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Hi there, and you're watching Think Tech, and it's Top Love with Loretta Chan. Of course, we have our studio guest today, and it's Kim Coco Iwamoto. And right now, I'm going to segue and ask something about Kim Coco. I went to her home, and I saw that not only is she a businesswoman, she's a legislator, she's a huge advocate, but now she is a mother. It was so nice to see this other side of you, just so paternal and so loving. So, thank you. I just want to correct that I'm not a legislator, and I've not worked at the legislature. I've only been there as a citizen activist. It was the Board of Education that I was elected to. So, yes, thank you for, yeah, I love being a mom. Rory is great. I feel like we're destined to be in each other's lives. So wonderful. And so with that love comes responsibility, right, for her health care, for her wellness and well-being. So, I never really considered vaccinations. I know for myself, if I don't have to get a flu vaccine or I can avoid getting vaccines, I do, I spend, I invest a lot in homeopathic and chiropractic, you know, in a lot of different alternative health to just keep my immune system strong. So I never really thought about vaccinations until my daughter rolling her in school, et cetera. So then I started following this, so the changes that are going on in Hawaii around the expansion of different vaccinations that are being required by our state. And I have to say, I just want to contextualize what I'm about to say as I've always been pro-choice. I'm a huge and longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood. I believe that women and all people should have autonomy and agency to go with, you know, to seek counsel from the physician, but ultimately to make decisions about their own bodies, what's going in their bodies, what's coming out of their bodies, you know, that they should have informed, they should be educated, be given alternatives and then be given access. So in viewing the requirements and the mandates around vaccinations of our children, I think about it with that lens of being pro-choice, pro-informed. And if people choose to get great, I actually think, because I also believe in Medicare for all. I believe vaccinations should be free to everyone if you choose to have it, if that's what you're choosing. Then, you know, I'm not saying, so I'm not anti this, you know, medical intervention for people, if that's for you, but my problem comes with the mandate. And one of the things that's really problematic is kids can be kept out of school, public school, private school, oftentimes daycare programs, you can be kept out. And one of the reasons why I find that really interesting is because during the 90s, there was a Ryan White act. Ryan White was a teenager who was hard from attending his school because he was HIV positive. That's right. You know, people said that's really unfair, there's a lot of stigma attached, and it's not based in anything. So they let somebody with, you know, so the Congress passed this act that said that schools and school districts cannot and states cannot discriminate against an individual for being HIV positive. So one of the things that's really interesting though is that the state now can ban kids from school for not being vaccinated, let's say, let's say if it's HIV, but now really the issue has come up, it's HPV is the issue. So you can be banned from school for being, for not getting vaccinated. But if you were HPV positive, you would be allowed to stay in school. So it's this very interesting contradiction, hypocrisy. On one hand, we value education, and then also I come from a civil rights perspective, which is the state acting in the least restrictive, least invasive way. Are there other ways to protect, to do a public health kind of model around disease and the way diseases are spread? One of the things I think about is the fact that when I travel to some countries, they have thermometers, basically laser thermometers pointed at every single person getting off the plane or entering the country. So then if there's an active virus in them, or something's going on, they can kind of put them to the side and let them get better. But for Hawaii, we have like 1.4 million people, we have 10 million tourists a year. So this concept that I learned about herd immunity, the idea of you want to vaccinate the herd and to a certain degree so that you protect it, our herd will never be able to get that because of the 10 million tourists that we never, we don't require vaccines from them. We don't thermograph or thermoscope, I don't know that word, but we don't take their temperatures. We don't do a lot of these things to prevent them from contaminating our herd. So why would we inject something, and here's the other part to this that I've been studying. As an attorney, you learn about liability, product liability. That is something that keeps manufacturers on their A game, right? So whether you build a car, anything, everything has liability, because you want to make sure that the consumer is protected. Vaccinations have been exempt from liability, 100% exempt. Congress passed the Vaccination Act, which said any producer of vaccinations, we don't care if it's ineffective. We don't care if you made that vaccine in a factory, in a country that is known to have horrible compliance and reliability rates. A lot of the vaccines are being made in countries where, I mean, there's no consequence for doing a bad job. So let me ask you two questions then, so the first question is do you think that instead of having mandatory vaccination, the question, oh, we should then place the responsibility on the pharmaceutical companies, right, to force them towards having to say you need to be more transparent about how these vaccines are made, is it a matter of communication or, and then let me play devil's advocate, because I hear you, but do you also think that if we have more unvaccinated individuals in a community, do you think that this will bring also a higher risk of potential of acquiring vaccine preventable diseases? So, I mean, it's two questions. Right, and your questions, what I heard, were based on a lot of assumptions, right? And I think it's going to take a lot of time to unpack all of those assumptions. What I'm trying to say is, for myself and some other people, the challenge is I want to be informed. And if you read the inserts, you know, every medication you get has an insert. And yes, in the insert, it says may cause injury or death. I mean, at least they're open about that. I know, it's like when you watch those drug ads, right, it's like on TV, it's like half the ad, three quarters of the ad is to tell you what, what, all the siding facts. Right, but for a lot of parents, and I learned this because, you know, my daughter did get vaccinated to get into her school, because I wasn't knowledgeable about it at the time. And I was never told that all of the side effects that she could befall her. Yeah. And then, and since then, I've been speaking with other parents, and also the doctor, the pediatrician has a duty to report that there is a vaccine injury. Yeah. But even then, there's a pressure for them not to report. Here's another thing. Pediatricians are given a financial payout if their patients get vaccinated on time, right? And you can look at it opposite. They get a, they get a deduction to get withheld money. That's right. So to get an incentive for vaccinating. So there's a financial incentive. There's basically a third party. That's right. The insurance company is now manipulating my pediatrician and the system to say what kind of treatment my child's going to get. That's right. Where, what other situation would we allow that kind of interference? Right. It's really shocking to me from a consumer advocate point of view that we would do that. So you have no choice, basically. No, there's financial pressure. So actually my physician was saying, oh yeah, you know, came up in, in a discussion that maybe we should, her office should just eject all the families who are questioning vaccinations because it may impact her overhead ability to meet her running an office cost. Wow. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's, there's a lot of craziness going on. And what we do know, and we're in this whole debate around opioid addiction and the consequences of the pharmaceutical companies. Yeah. What we've learned is that pharmaceutical companies are by far like four times more invested in lobbying. That's right. And making contributions to politicians than any other sector including guns, prisons, defense, weaponry, all of that stuff. Pharmaceuticals pay way more. That's right. But you know, we only have a couple more minutes left. But I also really wanted to quickly ask you this question because I know it's so important to you too. The one of the things that you're really passionate about is also this issue of the Aloha Aina movement. Yes. Because it's not one of our conversations. I mean, you raise the fact that you see racist responses to Aina protectors in the Aloha Aina movement. Yes. And one of the big flags for me is I compare the protection of conservation lands, different, different actions that's happened here in Hawaii. One of them being in Manoa Valley. Yes. HIKO, the electric company wanted to put these 108 foot towers along the Waiheela Ridge in order to carry the power lines on the ridge line. So here's Manoa Valley and here's the ridge, St. Louis Heights Ridge. Right. So it would have gone up around University of Hawaii and then up towards the peaks. Yes. And yes, they wanted to do that in the community who are actually Japanese families, Chinese families, white families and the Hawaiians that were there were Hawaiian missionary families. But all of them were saying, no, do not put these in our sight lines as conservation. And they got their way. And they stopped it. Right. And they got their way. Nobody, no one said, oh, please, you know, that you're just trying to stop development. Right. You're anti-electricity. That's right. Hey, you're anti-energy. Right. You know, no one said that. And people actually turned to the Hawaiians for protecting conservation that happens to be sacred to them. To say that you're anti-science. Suddenly they're being framed as anti-science. You're anti-science. Anti-progress. And one of the reasons we hear that is when somebody goes, oh, no, I support the team T because I believe in science. That is what they're saying. They're basically saying this group is anti-science. Right. And that in that is embedded a degree of racism. Right. That I feel like people need to own and recognize. And that's basically what I wanted to share. Yeah. No, no. I'm with you 100%. And that's why I think for our very first program, I really wanted to bring you in. Because I feel like you speak true to power. And you aren't afraid to bring up the issues that people need to hear or issues that people are too afraid to talk about. Because I mean, one of the things that I've noticed of having moved here as a Singaporean is that people are really gentle and really courteous and really nice. And sometimes in that, which I love, and that's why I moved here, but in that graciousness, sometimes we circumvent issues or conversations that we need to have. Yes. I agree. So I'm willing to take bold risk to put myself out there and make people will not agree with me. Yeah. And that's okay. And you know, people may share more information with me and might change my opinion on things or expand. Right. And I'm open to that. That's right. I'm not afraid of that. That's right. You're not afraid of tough love. You're not afraid of tough love. So also, since we wrapped up the show too, like quite quickly, I also really wanted to share that one of the things that you also shared in the book, right, is that you are never afraid to speak up for, you never want to do the work of the oppressor. That's right. And that's one of the things that stuck with me. You never want to do the work of the oppressor. So whatever you do, you always want to, whether when you have privilege of income, you want to help. If you have privilege of race, you want to have that conversation. If you have privilege of, and you're able to, it's like you play shifting roles. And you're able to see privilege. Right. And you recognize that privilege is not stagnant. And you're able to play these very different roles and put on different hats, which I think is what we must have and have these conversations, especially in the 21st century, where everything is, we're at an intersection. All of these issues meet. And we need to have these important conversations. Yeah. And also, don't do the work of the oppressor. Don't do it. I have to do the inner voice too. That's right. Your inner voice, do not listen to the words that you down in people's remarks. Right. Don't internalize that. And those are just the words we need to hear on Thursday. And the rest of the week, really. So if you want to find out more about Kim Coco, we'll find out more about her and that wonderful book. She must be plugging my own book. It's Mutual Publishing's new book, Inspiring Women of Hawaii. It's out now at all major bookstores, Costco, Target, Amazon. And also join us for a public launch at Bunsen Noble AMC Alamoana Center, November 15, 6 p.m. And all proceeds on the day of the events to work the YWCA and regular sales of the books go to work the women of Waianae scholarship. So please support Inspiring Women of Hawaii. Well, thank you all so much. Thank you for watching Tough Love with Laura Chan because you know what? Tough times don't last, but tough people do. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Bye-bye.