People from the mainland come to Hawaii and make it harder for local people to live in the Hawaiian Islands. Over the years, buying a home has become really hard for local people because mainlanders are buying land. The price of land in Hawaii has gone up quite a bit. Because of this, many local people in Hawaii have to leave their homes, and the Hawaiian culture is starting to disappear.
Today, home prices are out of reach for most local families. According to the Honolulu Board of Realtors, “the median sales price for a single-family home on Oʻahu hit $1,160,000 in March 2025—up from $1,100,000 a year earlier. Even condominiums carry a median price of $500,000. In sought-after areas like Kailua and Koʻolaupoko, single-family homes routinely sell for $1.3–1.4 million or more, placing ownership well beyond the means of many kama‘āina” (Sobin, etc al). Some people might say the mainland people coming in is good for the economy but it has negative impacts. Losing Hawaiian land is also causing a big loss in the local culture. Native Hawaiian culture is very special, and it’s been changing ever since Western explorers arrived. Now, with so much land being bought by people who aren’t from Hawaii, the culture is fading. When the land changes hands, the way people live on it also changes, and the stories, traditions, and way of life can get lost.
One way to help with this problem is to give land back to Native Hawaiians or recognize their rights to it. There have been ideas to create a government run by Native Hawaiians and to return land that was taken from them without asking. In 1993, the U.S. Congress said sorry to Native Hawaiians for taking over the Kingdom of Hawaii without permission, but they still haven’t done much to actually give the land back (Public Law 103-150). Some land has been returned, but there’s still a long way to go. The government needs to do more to make up for the pain caused by taking away the land.
In the end, Native Hawaiians’ fight for their land is not just about having a place to live. It’s about keeping their culture, their identity, and their ability to decide what happens to them in the future. Hawaii is one of the only places in the U.S. where the people still have a strong connection to their ancestral lands, and we need to help protect that.
