Sharks In The Time Of Saviors

The cultural clash between native-born residents of a land and outsiders who move to it is a universal theme. However, the tourist-based economy of Hawai‘i magnifies these tensions in Sharks in the Time of Saviors. Tourism, by its very nature, appeals to outsiders. Furthermore, tourism brings in a lot of outside investment and big international businesses, such as giant hoteliers and cruise ship companies. A large percentage of the profits of these multinational tourist companies go to foreign owners and partners. When a substantial portion of the native population feels left out and reduced to working low-paying service jobs, resentment emerges. In Sharks in the Time of Saviors, the Flores family embodies this tension. Each member was born on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, and throughout the novel the mother and father struggle to support their family by working menial jobs.

All the Flores family members derisively refer to non-Hawaiians, mostly Caucasians who visit or have relocated to the islands, as “haoles.” Malia is the most vocal in expressing her disdain for the outsiders who, she believes, have ruined the islands. Her ire is evident in passages like the following, which describes outside capitalistic forces encroaching upon and defacing the islands’ natural beauty:

The asphalt crushing kalo underfoot, the warships belching filth into the sea, the venomous run of haole money, California Texas Utah New York, until between the traffic jams and the beach-tent homeless camps and big-box chain stores nothing was the way it should have been (68).

With this industry comes tourists who care only about what they can take from the islands, not the native culture or people. This fraught dynamic between native residents and tourists is evident in Malia’s interactions with haoles at the grocery store where she works as a clerk:

when it was haoles usually they were like, Do you know what time the Arizona Memorial opens, or How do I get to Sea Life Park from here. And Mom and Trish answered but you could tell they wanted to be like, Everyone brown is not your tour guide (61).

Nainoa is the only character who questions the stereotypical portrayal of white people, but only in one brief passage: “Fucking haoles. It’s the way Dean would have put it if he were here: he’d always bought the local perceptions of white people—hopelessly ignorant, awkward, dirty—and as much as I resist the stereotype, sometimes it smashes itself in my face” (185). Some readers may view the family’s scorn for white non-Hawaiians as scapegoating and even racist. However, the novel accurately depicts the resentment of many lower-class Hawaiians who have not benefitted from the outsider-dominated tourist economy.

The cultural schism becomes even more apparent when the three Flores children follow the path of so many residents of small island communities—they leave for the mainland, a bigger place with more opportunities. The family’s diaspora, highlighted by long-distance phone calls, then dominates the middle chapters of the book. Nainoa is the first one to answer a calling and return home to the islands, where he dies. The other two follow, although only Kaui decides to stay and work the land on a farm on the Big Island.