Reflection: Hawai'i's Homelessness

Strolling down Waikiki I can not help but to notice the many corners of the streets is rather filled with disadvantaged individuals without homes. My first reaction was that to normalize this distressing situation as it being common in the big cities everywhere. I grew up in a country where no one had to lay on the pavement, without a roof on their heads and a hunger far more than an empty fridge.

Part of the YSEALI academic fellowship was a site visit to the Institute of Human Services (IHS) to learn about the rooftop gardens' green technologies, namely Hydroponics and Aquaponics. So basically its the growing of crops without soil, to ensure sustainable supply of food, as well as gaining profit from the selling of the produce.

I should not be technical on this, because what striked me the most during the trip was, IHS is a homeless shelter. I have never been to one, and back home, we do not have such facility for the community because there is no need for that. The person in charge of the center gave us a tour and brief of the place. He told us one shocking fact: 1 out of 20 Hawaiians are without homes.

The problem of homelessness in Hawai'i is deeper than just the high living costs and immigration issues. We learned the ugly truth, that we, all of ASEAN nations, have indirectly contributed to the causes of the chronic homelessness in Hawai'i.

... the Americans ran atomic tests in the Micronesian islands and this had to be done to exterminate the evil force of the East, Japan. The whole of ASEAN was terrorized by the Japanese Army, and my own grandmother for example, had to dig a hole in the ground and hide there with her family. People were starved of food, women were raped and many people were killed. An end to this hell has to be enforced, and two nuclear bombs were eventually dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Americans compensated the affected islanders of Micronesia by allowing easy entry and the ability to work without permit in the United States. Most of the islanders refuged to Hawai'i, and they have a culture of staying together with their families - which means the house may not be enough to accommodate for everyone. There is no additional help for health care, education, assistance to job seekers and some of these immigrants were forced to live on the streets.

The truth hurts, to know that in order to help liberate ASEAN, as well as to end the world war, these innocent islanders are made into victims.

So my reflection on the matter is devastation. There is not enough help given to those who needed it the most. Even IHS is an NGO and dependent so much on humanity's kindness and generosity of the people through donation drives and items. The rooftop garden is not enough to feed multiple IHS centers in Hawai'i.

Lend a helping hand if you can, to help with funding for their street medicines, relocation programs, job assistance and to cover the cost of running the shelter.

Check out their website to find out more: https://ihshawaii.org/

Now as I've received feedbacks from friends, they told me check on the fact that the U.S. did the tests AFTER the war. The earlier information that I wrote was given by one of the educator of the program that I participated in. At first I thought the reasons for the testing was desperate and 'for the good of mankind' - which is to end the evil force of Japan during the war... But I just don't understand when the more I read about the tests being conducted after the war, the more confused I got.

An excerpt from Al-Jazeera's article ''Micronesians in Hawaii face uncertain future'' by Jon Letman;

1. When the bloodiest Pacific battles of World War II were over, the United States found a new use for the small islands of Micronesia: open-air nuclear testing. 
2. Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted at least 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, unleashing the equivalent of over 7,200 Hiroshima-sized bombs in the Marshall Islands. 
   * It was '23 atomic- and hydrogen-bomb blasts in the 1940s and 1950s, ' instead according to the Guardian's article ''Paradise lost - 'for the good of mankind'' by Jack Niedenthal.
3. The largest test, carried out in March 1954, had a yield of 15 megatons, over 1,000 times the strength of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. 

So there was NO testing up the Micronesian Islands prior to the ending of WWIII but I simply can not justify the reasons why there need to be testing after the war.

And is it 67 or 23 blasts??