04/09/2026
I have loved poetry my whole life. There is a collection at home that very few people have ever seen - pages I wrote for myself, not for an audience, because that is what poetry has always been for me.
A place to put the truth when the world gets too loud.
Those who know me already know this about me.
Self Determination- written while grounding at my spot-
Let me tell you about a future Hilo.
Not a resort.
Not a development project
with a coconut tree in the rendering
and none of our faces in the brochure.
A Hilo where Merrie Monarch week
is one beautiful thread
in a fabric
that holds all year.
Where the small businesses
didn’t have to survive on one week’s revenue
and a prayer.
Where the visitors came for the hula
and stayed because the economy
gave them a hundred reasons
to spend their dollars here
with people who built something
worth spending them on.
A Hilo where the pipeline runs -
from the school
to the farm
to the lab
to the harbor
to the aerospace corridor
being born right now
at the airport
if anyone in a council seat
would just show up for it.
A Hilo where the welcome wagon
meets every person
who moves here from somewhere else
and says -
Aloha -
welcome.
Here is what this place is.
Here is what it has survived.
Here is the tree you are standing under
and why it matters
and why you may not cut it down.
Here is the rain and why we love it.
Here is the lava and what it means.
Here is our culture —
not as décor,
not as backdrop,
but as the living breathing reason
this place is worth protecting.
More of our people live somewhere else
than live here now.
Think about that.
The people this island made
could not afford to stay
in the place that made them.
That is not destiny.
That is a policy failure.
And policy failures
have solutions.
I can see the Hilo
on the other side of this.
I have always been able to see it.
Not because I am special -
because I never stopped looking.
Self determination.
Not waiting for someone
to come and save us.
Not one event a year
that carries the weight
of an entire economy.
Our own hands.
Our own vision.
Our own people
deciding what this place becomes
before someone else decides for us.
That is what I am running for.
Not a seat.
Not a title.
Not a banner on a corner.
The future.
Hilo’s actual future.
Built by Hilo’s actual people.
Starting now.
JoNelle Fukushima
Candidate, Hawaii County Council District 2
Hilo, April 2026
vote4fuku Friends of JoNelle Fukushima HiLo
