Kalama Valley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kalama Valley is a community in the town of Hawaiʻi Kai located on the eastern end of the island of Oʻahu. It features a shopping center, a public park, and a group of town houses.
The shopping center in Kalama Valley ten years ago was home to a convenience store, a Chinese restaurant, a Thai restaurant, a church, and an auto care center. For the past couple of years however, all that remains has been the Thai restaurant and auto care center. Ever since the convenience store closed, there have been many rumors of a 7 Eleven possibly opening up in the center which would undoubtedly please the citizens of the entire neighborhood, or anyone that often goes to Sandy Beach, a popular beach barely a mile away from Kalama Valley. Also, in 2004 there was a rumor of a small gas station opening in the center. In early September 2006, there was talk of a Jamba Juice, Starbucks, or Subway filling one of the vacant stores possibly as early as Halloween 2006. Even Wal-Mart has been rumored for the shopping center.
In a Honolulu Weekly article entitled, "The Future of Kamilo Nui," dated November 23, 2005, Kevin O’Leary wrote the following of Kalama Valley:
"Kalama Valley, minutes away from Kamilo Nui to the east, became a political battleground in 1970 when Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate began evicting long-time leaseholding farmers to make room for a subdivision. Pig farmer George Santos held out against the bulldozers for months, supported by a coalition of environmental groups and a nascent Native Hawaiian rights movement. Today the valley is full of tract homes. "The beginning of the sovereignty movement is generally taken to be the struggle against Kamehameha Schools at Kalama Valley, when the people were evicted so that the estate could build those fancy houses," says Professor Haunani-Kay Trask of the UH Center for Hawaiian Studies. Trask, who says she was unaware of the Kamilo Nui controversy, nevertheless finds KSBE’s position "no surprise." "They [KSBE] are nothing more than a development corporation, and we who are the grads (Trask graduated from Kamehameha in 1967) and the Hawaiians and the heirs of Bernice Pauahi have been fighting that approach since the post-statehood era of development began."
