Tourist Traps in TheBus

    A large theme from the poems of Thirteen Ways of Looking at TheBus is the effect of tourists and tourism on Hawaii. One poem in which this idea is evident is "Wahiawa No Mo' Starbucks." The poem is written in pidgin, giving the speaker a local identity. The speaker immediately declares that there is no more Starbucks coffee in Wahiawa, so if that's what a tourist is looking for, they have to take the bus elsewhere (Mililani and North Shore are suggested) to get it. In the middle of that statement, the speaker also criticizes any person (most likely a tourist) who is willing to pay three dollars for one cup of coffee. It is almost as if Gajelonia is suggesting in this poem that only a tourist would make the effort to seek out Starbucks for coffee, as it is popular on the mainland and essentially a familiar and "safe" place, since tourists most likely wouldn't want to try anything local.
    In the next stanza, however, the speaker assures the reader that just because there is no more Starbucks, it doesn't mean Wahiawa doesn't have anything else familiar, such as McDonald's (another huge, familiar name) and Jack in the Box. This stanza illustrates that a tourist should have no worries because though one familiar place is gone, there are many others to go to. I imagine it's the same as traveling outside of the country and choosing to eat at McDonald's or Burger King instead of somewhere local, because most people are familiar with that food and will choose to eat there first. It's safe, comforting, and something we've come to know throughout our lives. It's almost expected of tourists to choose familiar places like that.
    The third stanza lists off unfamiliar, local places in which a person can find coffee bags if they just buy their own coffee maker, which of course would be unlikely if the audience is imagined to be a tourist, who would not buy a coffee maker if they were just on a short visit. The following stanza lists more places, starting with the most familiar to a tourist and getting progressively local and unfamiliar. I think the root of the issue in this poem is that it's expected of tourists to pay more for something, as long as it's exactly what they went (like the familiar name brand of Starbucks). Locals are not willing to pay that much for something they know they can find cheaper elsewhere. Starbucks, and all the other familiar places are essentially tourist traps-they know they can charge more and stay in business without money from local consumers because of this reason. This is essentially what I think Gajelonia was trying to illustrate with this and other poems of Thirteen Ways of Looking at TheBus.