There’s a massive Banyan tree in Lahaina, Maui. It’s a much-visited and beloved tourist destination. I’ve visited every time I’ve been to Maui. It’s an instantly recognizable symbol of the town and the island. 

When the terrible fires destroyed Lahaina and took so many lives, the question that many people asked, after expressing their concern for the people, was if the Banyan tree had survived. People cared about this tree. I was among those who cared, who had an emotional stake in its survival. I’m not sure why, but to many, it became a symbol of resilience, a living (we hoped) metaphor for life’s persistence and nature’s healing power. If it could survive and thrive, it might give hope for the healing of the people of Lahaina and Maui.

No one knew what its fate would be. The leaves were gone, the branches burned, and both the trunk and visible roots were charred. Over this last year, people have looked for signs of life, for green shoots and leaves. 

At the one-year anniversary, when folks looked at the Banyan it seemed to be coming out of dormancy. There was new growth on its branches, and leaves began to appear. This rebirth was met with great joy by many. Yet, predictably, others were not as enthusiastic, pointing out that the tree was not a good symbol because it was not indigenous. It had been imported to Maui and planted in 1873. While not an invasive species, it didn’t meet the purity test of indigeneity.

It may seem churlish of me to point out that Hawai’i’s other great symbol, the pineapple, is also non-native. It was brought to the islands in the 1500s. For that matter, the coconut palm is not truly native but was carried to Hawai’i in antiquity by the Polynesians. They, too, came from somewhere else. Whether or not you are seen as belonging on how long you’ve been somewhere. 

How long does it take for a plant or people to be accepted as native, as belonging? How long do we conflate non-native with invasive? These questions are not meant to pick on Hawai’i, which is but one example of a worldwide trend of xenophobia and nativism.

Currently, there are riots all over England in many small and seemingly abandoned cities that once were centers of coal mining and smokestack industries. The tragic killing of three young girls and wounding of many more by a knife-wielding killer of African descent was transformed into a killing by an illegal African refugee who was Muslim. One tragedy unloosed a flood of hatred, violence, and xenophobia. The killer was neither illegal nor Muslim. He was born in England. But facts don’t matter when people are filled with rage, fear, and resentment. 

It took little time for riots and vandalism to terrorize apparent foreigners (meaning nonwhite folks), as well as identifiable Muslims, their Mosques, and businesses. Social media spread misinformation, disinformation, and plain lies. Elon Musk unhelpfully accused the new British Prime Minister of having a “two-tiered system of justice,” one lenient for people of color and a stricter, even draconian, system for white people.

These riots against perceived foreigners spread to Northern Ireland and there were troubles in Belfast. Perhaps it’s a kind of perverse progress that the Catholics and Protestants of Belfast could unite against the new arrivals.

This nativism is alive and sick in France as the far-right gains power based on the grievances of the “real French,” who are not Muslims, Africans, Asians, or Jews. The strongest nativism in Europe is in Hungary. If you are not a straight, Christian, ethnic Hungarian, you really don’t belong. Foreigners might be welcomed as tourists or workers but not as real Hungarians. The same nativism exists in Russia, where to be a real Russian is to be straight, Russian Orthodox, and Slavic. Ironically, even the Swedes who founded Russia in what is today Kiev would not qualify—being neither Slavic nor Russian Orthodox.

Obviously, this nativism exists in India with its ethnic and religious battles that augment its pernicious caste system. Last week in South Africa, nativism manifested when a contestant for Miss South Africa was harassed and abused because her name had roots from a different African country. Her father’s family was non-native. There is no nation nor people that escape this nativism:

“I belong, but you don’t. My people got here before your people. You can never catch up.”

In America, some do catch up. When people have been here for a generation or two, they begin to feel at home, and then they criticize the new arrivals—even from their once-native country. We see this today with some Hispanics moving politically rightward because of some resentment of newly arrived Hispanics. And it makes little difference whether immigration is legal or not.

“I was here first—now go away.” We say this to every wave of immigrants. 

I hope that someday, the people who have lived in Maui for twenty or thirty years and consider themselves real Hawaiians will picnic beneath the resurrected Banyan tree and accept that its 150-year residence is worthy of the status of belonging. This is not about immigration or the right to control our borders. This is about pernicious nativism. My dream is that we open our hearts to the people of different religions and ethnicities who came after us and that we give a warmer welcome than we and our ancestors received.