Remembering Lahaina: What I Learned about Tourism, the ‘Āina, and Myself during Twelve Years on Maui

The August 8, 2023, Lahaina fire was the worst thing to happen to West Maui since the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the late nineteenth century. The fire was a tragic disaster, but it didn’t simply happen due to random chance. The conditions that made West Maui ripe for destruction by uncontrolled fire date back more than a century. Anthony Pignataro knows this because he spent a dozen years reporting about politics and society on Maui, which often impacted West Maui, for one of the last alternative newsweeklies in Hawai‘i.A Southern California resident since 2018, Pignataro watched the fire unfold on social media and television news. He then spent the next two months remotely reporting almost nonstop on the aftermath and immediate recovery of Lahaina for MauiTime, his old paper. After watching Hawai‘i’s governor shame West Maui residents into going back to work in luxury resorts just a few months after the fire robbed many of them of their homes, pets, jobs, and even family mem