Molokai's outsiders

I ran across this commentary/letter in THE MOLOKAI DISPATCH written by Alona Demmers who mentions Steve Morgan's satirical take on La'au Point.

Two Thumbs Down for Steve Morgan's Satire

What I noticed was how Alona begins questioning and making assumption about Steve Morgan's connection to the island, bringing up the issue of an "outsider" and what really does constitute an outsider and, in a typical Haole mentality, if there is an outsider, there must be an insider, and what makes Steve an insider? Alona asks if it has to do with Steve siding with the community and choses to go against the plan that makes him an insider?

To me, these are the most stupidest things you could question. Worse, Alona mentions how after living on the island for 2 years (yeah, as if that is a long time) that one thing that is real is that 80% of the island's people that [s]he knows were not born and raised there. This is so easily explained. Given the fact that Alona is an outsider, they don't get a chance to know all the locals and most importantly the families there. That, and/or Alona only met a lot of the old people who migrated to Molokai decades ago to work, knows mostly the Filipinos who weren't born and raised there and same goes for the Haoles. There are so many families on Molokai who has been there for more than a few generations including those homestead families like my own. On my maternal side, the family has been there for at least 6 generations now and on my paternal side, we have had 4 generations born and/or raised on Molokai. If Alona only knew my relatives, that would make it 100% of the people been born/raised on Molokai. So you can see how Alona can easily claim 80%, but that doesn't reflect that [s]he has gone throughout the entire populace and took an informal census.

Now as for being an outsider, I posted this link:
http://molokainuiahina.blogspot.com/2008/02/recently-i-mentioned-to-nish-friend-of.html
This says a lot about blending in and assimilating. When you assimilate, you become one with the community, the environment, the people. Therefore, you won't be considered this "outsider". And 2 years, compare that to my 18 years of living on the mainland of which I quickly adapted to. Some people just refuse to go with the flow. That is Alona.