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Since you insist on making a comparison... why not compare to other diverse U.S. cities? There about as many asians in NYC alone as there are people in the state of Hawaii.
I swear the smugness of Hawaii transplants is the thing I miss the least about living there. Everything is compared to the "mainland" and the part of the "mainland" used for comparisons are carefully chosen depending on what type of point they are trying to prove.
Why not compare to these cities, places that are also known to have a lot of recent immigration from asia, latin america, africa etc...? No sense pick the whitest city in the midwest... that would be like saying Niihau represents the diversity in Hawaii.
It's funny, I actually agree that Hawaii is very diverse I just can't stand the way people talk about it like no other place in the world is too. It is really a pet peeve of mine. I just want some honesty and consistency, that is all. Hawaii is nice enough to stand on its own, it doesn't need to be propped up all the time with misleading or cherry picked comparisons.
Maybe what Tiger Beer really means is that he is interested in the culture of the ethnic groups. In that sense, Hawaii does have a mix of several cultures. But I would argue that it's very hard to approach them. You would need a long residency, an easy-going attitude, and then you might meet people and be close enough to them to actually experience their culture. Plus, the appealing part of these cultures is that they are family-based, so until you get accepted into a family, you're only seeing the outward manifestations.
I can go to a bon dance every week during the summer on Kaua'i, but unless I know someone, I doubt I'd feel the culture as opposed to just seeing it. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I would be welcome to participate and dance if I made the effort to learn it a bit, and that might be the ticket to meeting people, but until I do, I'm just like a tourist watching the dancing.
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