An obscure 30-year-old treaty has landed thousands of Micronesians in poverty and homelessness in Hawaii.
Some of the residents loaded their belongings into shopping carts and pushed them down Ilalo Street, away from the park they'd called home since the last sweep. One man pulled his things in a child's red wagon. A few people attached carts to their bicycles and pedaled northwest, as night fell on the palm trees and grassy squares of Kakaako Waterfront Park, the beachside public recreation area just south of Honolulu's downtown.
Jaymiola and Jerana had no carts or wagons or bicycles. The sisters gathered up their bedding in their arms, while a companion hoisted their tent over his head for the half-mile trek to Ala Moana Boulevard. Their family used to have two tents, one for the women and girls and another for the men and boys. But the other one, the bigger one, had been thrown out during an earlier sweep, they said. Now the five female family members crowded into the neon green tent—which could maybe, generously, be termed a three-person tent—while the males stayed with friends and relatives in the park.
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