Eng 2010 Blog Post #1

Sense of Place, Solastalgia, Eco-Anxiety and You Beach - Waimanalo Beach

Growing up on an island, you tend to have a very specific sense of place.  Where is a place that is everywhere in Hawaii?  The beach, since the beaches surround the borders of the island of course.  More specifically for me, the beach that I have the most sense of place associated with it is Waimanalo beach.  Time after time again, this specific beach has been the go-to.  "Da spot" as we local Hawaiians call it.  This beach is where my family has had most of our birthday parties or any kind of hangout!  Whenever I'm there, I'm in the present, I'm not thinking about that homework that's due or about having to go to school or work the next day.  Since I basically spent most of my life at this beach, I have a strong emotional connection to it and it's sad to see what has come of it recently.  

Ever since I was little, local Hawaiians have been able to go to the beach after school, work, or sports games.  We say "Pau Hana" kine hangout, which basically means to be finished to work so "we go beach".  But recently, these beaches have been eroding away.  In my lifetime, the beaches have visibly eroded halfway.  A recent study by Hawaii News Now published by the University of Hawaii predicts that "40% of Hawaii's beaches could be lost by the year 2050 because of sea-level rise".  This means that the erosion rate will remain steady as time goes on.  This study only estimates up until 2050, which is in my lifetime, and isn't that far from now.  What will happen to Hawaii's beaches 100 years from now?  Or how about 1,000 years from now.  Hawaiians won't have their Pau Hana spot to go to, once Hawaii's beach erosion gets worse. 

The thought of one of my favorite places, with time, will no longer exist, is a tough pill for me to swallow.  You could call it Eco anxiety since it's also very hard for me to digest the feeling of helplessness.  Or the feeling of wanting to hold on to that place in which I've formed an emotional connection.  In another source by Honolulu Civil Beat, a man named Kamuela Kalai placed 300 sandbags alongside this part of Kamehameha Highway to stop further erosion to the road.  According to Kalai, “We tried to make a barricade but … the water washed them all away,”.  This shows how some people in Hawaii are trying to fix this erosion problem, but the solution only seems to last temporarily.  

To make matters even worse, I can't visit Waimanalo beach as often as I'd like because my family just moved to Montana.  So when I'm not at school at SUU, I won't be going back to Hawaii, instead, I'll be coming to Montana.  Which is hard, not being able to go home to the place I grew up in.  Although this whole situation with erosion is out of my hands, it is still very hard to know what Hawaii beaches will be in the years to come.  I like to think that with time I'll form emotional connections to the new place of living and be able to call it home, although Hawaii will always be my home.

Sources-

https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/12/a-community-tries-to-save-hawaiian-burials-with-sandbags-as-sea-levels-rise/ 

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2020/09/21/study-hawaiis-beaches-could-disappear-years-due-sea-level-rise/