For generations, Chinatown has been one of the most cosmopolitan and exciting parts of the Pacific hub that is the Hawaiian islands.

The first Chinese arrived in Honolulu in 1788, becoming a key part of Hawaii's sugar industry in the mid-1800s, and establishing a vibrant center of culture and local commerce in a 25-acre portion of the city by the late 19th century.

This historic and ethnically diverse community has survived flood, fire and plague – it was burned to the ground in 1886, and again in 1900. It has also repeatedly escaped the iron fist of urban"redevelopment". Today, Chinatown is again under attack.

Aloha Land and Water, an international realty development consortium, has negotiated a series of secret deals to take over residential areas and family-owned businesses in the Chinatown district and replace them with slick, high-priced condominiums and franchise stores. Aloha needs to hear from concerned parties, who so far have been locked out of the decision-making process, that this form of "investment" is unacceptable to the majority of stakeholders in the area.

Save Chinatown's group of concerned citizens are resolved not to allow the narrow profit-oriented interests of industry transform the neighborhood into another Waikiki.

We are not opposed to economic progress, but to the secretive planning process and the destruction of character being threatened. The abuse of tax incentives and historic preservation grants for the benefit of a few wealthy investors, who have no real interest in maintaining the uniquely distinctive culture of the district, is of particular concern.