'CALIFORNIA HOTEL: HAWAI`I'S HOME AWAY FROM HOME' DISPLAY TO OPEN AT JANM MAY 28

The Japanese American National Museum will install a unique display, "The California Hotel: Hawai`i’s Home Away from Home", which explains the remarkable relationship between Hawaiians and the Las Vegas casino, beginning on Saturday, May 28. The display was developed by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai`i, which also published a book, California Hotel and Casino: Hawai`i’s Home Away from Home, which is available for purchase.

The exhibit outlines, and the book details, the evolution of the California Hotel and Casino under its original owner, Sam Boyd, as it looked for a new audience to attract to its facility in downtown Las Vegas in the 1970s and 1980s. Boyd, who had lived in Hawai`i, decided that bringing groups of people from the islands might provide his casino with a new audience that was being ignored by the rest of Las Vegas. To accomplish this goal, Boyd provided rooms and meals for low or even no cost, changed the menu of his restaurants to suit Hawaiian taste (including hiring a head chef from Hawai`i) and sent his marketing executive John Blink on frequent trips to Hawai`i to work with the local travel agents.

Over the course of time, Boyd was able to attract more and more visitors from Hawai`i until the hotel was completely filled from this one geographic area. According to Blink, "The folks we’d get were mostly Japanese Americans (80 percent at one point). The next largest group was Filipinos, many of whom had relatives in Los Angeles, which had a huge Filipino community."

At one point in the 1980s, the California Hotel had created such a large demand that they could no longer handle all the people from Hawai`i. So they expanded the size of their facility. It turned out that the gamblers from Hawai`i were ideal. Blink wrote that "the average Las Vegas tourist (in 1985) was spending $300 or less in gaming for the whole visit, which was probably about two an a half days. The average Hawai`i gambler, however, was spending $350 on gaming per day and staying three to four days."

Blink noted that most Hawai`i gamblers were not reckless, however. "They knew precisely how much money they came with and what they were going to spend," Blink explained. "They knew pretty much, based on mathematical examples on craps and blackjack, just what the odds were. If you want to make it entertaining, make it enjoyable without getting hurt financially, number one, you have to be a good money manager."

Of the Japanese Americans, Blink realized they "were steadier gamblers. Anywhere else, their behavior was fairly moderate, reserved, not given to excess. But when it came to gambling, it was like you changed their whole cultural background overnight. They loved to gamble. They gambled longer than any other ethnic group."

Professor Dennis Ogawa, who co-wrote the book with Blink and Mike Gordon, summed up the exhibit: "The California Hotel is an amazing phenomenon, thriving against the odds and traditional market beliefs. Instead of seeking out only the high rollers, it caters to the average Hawai`i resident, one who values the aloha spirit and the down-to-earth culture of the Islands. A stay there is like being at home, complete with rice, oxtail soup, and saimin noodles at any hour of the day. Above all, the success of the California Hotel is based not only on a gambling casino but on recognition of Hawai`i’s people and local culture. It is a story worth telling."

"The California Hotel: Hawai`i’s Home Away from Home" display will be on view through August 28, 2011, at the Japanese American National Museum.