Quote Originally Posted by spmetla View Post
I can only really speak for what I see here in Hawaii which has more rednecks and hippies than most would think. On my island kids can either go to school and then work in Honolulu or the mainland US or they can stay on the island and work in a hotel or agriculture unless they are professionals like the careers you listed. Here in Hawaii most Japanese, Chinese, Filipino or American/European ethnic backgrounds pursue just what you are talking about. They want agriculture and manufacturing in Hawaii again too but their kids go Punahou and then a good mainland school sot hey can do anything but those two industries.
The other ethnic groups in Hawaii (native Hawaiians, Micronesians, Samoas) do have access to those too but in general those aren't pushed by their families. Understandably many Hawaiians don't want to leave their particular district or island for work and instead become 'mokes' (pretty much rednecks). Nothing wrong with that but with the slow half measures toward Hawaiian independence or tribal status within the US and the increasingly hostile attitudes of these 'mokes' it wouldn't surprise me if they don't begin resorting to violence as well. Micronesians are belittle by all the other groups and keep largely to themselves creating a group that is almost permanently in the welfare category with no push to move up and with the corresponding increase in crime, especially for all their young males which I have more than enough problems with when I employ them on my farm.

Enough of the people I knew from highschool that decided to stay in Kona here make a living collecting unemployment while doing under the table work and selling pakalolo (marijuana).

I know that like it or not a lot of the world is broken into class that are still very much ethnically based, even if there is not official policy to keep it so. Poor ethnic bubbles that see themselves as unable to achieve what we define as success in terms of money or respectable careers will have people move into crime.
I think this is a common theme for Islands that are not the size of continents -- the primary export is people and the economy locally is seldom truly integrated and variegated enough. Heaven knows that my state, Florida, has scads of residents and citizens who were born on Islands in the Carribean.