Self-Concept

In Kalaupapa, Hawaii, a Story of Exile and Union

Clarence “Boogie” Kahilihiwa was sent to the island of Kalaupapa , Hawaii in 1959. He’s one of some 8,000 people who were effectively banished against their will to the island because they had Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy. Isolation laws, later abolished in 1969, permitted the government to do so.

Today, just 24 of the banished bunch remain, Boogie among them. Why does he still stick around? The answer probably lies in his working self-concept. The working self-concept is defined as the image of self that is currently active in the person’s thoughts. When someone is self-aware, he or she can only be aware of a small part of all of the information known about oneself. Changes can occur based on situational factors as well as cognitions about those around you.

Initially, Boogie and the other ill people’s self-concepts were those of victims. The “separating sickness,” as it is appropriately nicknamed, tore victims from their families and friends, never again to “feel the embrace of loved ones living somewhere beyond the volcanic formations that rise like stone sentries just offshore.” Being taken away from your family is certainly cause for negative affect and feelings of victimization.

After living for years under medical supervision, Boogie began to “consider himself a patient, not a resident.” In the context of “normal” people, state health employees and National Park Service workers, Boogie’s identity as a patient was easily magnified. An “us vs. them” stigma arose, as Boogie describes his inability to feel like part of the community as a whole. His role became that of one to be cared for, unable to care for himself.

Whatever aspects of you that stand out as unusual become prominent in the phenomenal self. But whenever he was in the company of other afflicted people, Boogie didn’t stand out and said he felt most “at home.” Today, this is Boogie’s justification for remaining on the island. “This is my home,” he states fondly.

Though his fondness for his “home” could merely be an attempt to silence cognitive dissonance about his troubled life, I’m glad he has found solace in his situation.