Oahu residents add their voices to protest fever

About 100 people inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement on the mainland gathered at Honolulu’s Chinatown Gateway Park Saturday to vent frustration at big business, big government and the general direction of the nation.

With a broad spectrum of priorities raised — including funding for education and social programs, Hawaiian independence, small business and protesting the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference — those attending what organizers described as a "general assembly" sometimes had a hard time finding consensus on what direction they should take.

But they did agree to call themselves "Occupy Honolulu," at least for the moment, and to use an existing "Occupy Honolulu" Facebook page as their key form of disseminating information. They also agreed to create several work groups and to return to the park on South Hotel and Bethel streets at 11 a.m. today to further carve out their identity.

Many of those gathered expressed agreement with the "we are the 99 percent" theme espoused by Occupy Wall Street, the notion that 99 percent of U.S. citizens have been growingly disenfranchised by 1 percent of the population that controls the nation’s power and money.

Honolulu Community College student Shayla Ka’ai, 24, drew compliments for holding a sign that read "Wall St. forgot about Hotel St."

Ka’ai, who said she is collecting unemployment after being laid off from a nonprofit due to budget cuts, said she senses a common frustration among those gathered. She noted that there were teachers, unionized workers and nurses in the crowd — "regular, hard-working people," she said.

"We’ve been waiting for how long for someone to stand up for us, but every week, every month, it just gets worse and worse," Ka’ai said. "People have been frustrated for a while."

Lauren Ballesteros, 24, a part-time restaurant worker who also works part time for the Local 5 hotel and restaurant workers union, helped facilitate Saturday’s discussion.

"The structures that (the 1 percent of the population) have created have diminished the quality of life for 99 percent of us of all colors, genders and sexual orientations," Ballesteros said.

The financial collapse that began in 2008 exposed the greed and selfishness of corporate executives and how they could affect the greater community, she said.

"Now I think it’s time for people to say, ‘Hey, this is wrong and we can do something about it.’"

Leeward Community College student Michael Broady Jr., 23, said the majority of the population is dependent on the decisions of a few people who run large corporations.

"We need to create awareness of that to get people together to have discussion on that, and then hopefully find some ideas on how we can be self-sufficient as opposed to being dependent on the corporations."

Jeremy Ornellas, 31, an organic farmer, said tax breaks and other incentives are given to large agricultural corporations while small farmers such as himself must fend for themselves.

"There are huge corporations out there that run the agricultural companies and make agricultural laws that prevent the small-time farmer from doing what is necessary to grow organically because of regulations against those objectives," he said.

Computer specialist Rick Chavez, 52, called the Occupy Wall Street movement "historic."

"We’ve been snoozing for the past 30 years and I think progressively things have been getting worse and we’ve reached a tipping point," Chavez said. "I think that the young people are ready to step in and take over. We kinda blew it."

Chavez said the situation has occurred before in history when too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few. "It’s cyclical," he said.

Despite different priorities raised, from APEC to Hawaiian independence, the group will be able to find common ground, Ballesteros said.

"We can build a collective consciousness because we share a similar frustration," she said. "That is the value of a democracy. People being able to have healthy debates with one another and then work toward something."

Similar gatherings were held on Maui and Hawaii island.