The same question keeps surfacing, no matter where I turn. It appears in texts from friends, during Zoom calls, and over dinner conversations: What can I do?

Since the killing of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 in Minnesota, the question hasn’t been abstract. Friends and acquaintances are watching reports about ICE tactics, feeling that familiar mix of anger and helplessness.

But they’re also seeing something else: ordinary people refusing to be bystanders. People are showing up anyway, using whatever resources they have — a phone to document brutality, a car to mobilize neighbors, or a pen to make a sign. I’m on a WhatsApp chat with a group of knitters in Paris who have started making red “Melt the ICE” hats, re-popularized by Minnesotans as a sign of resistance and solidarity. These hats were once used to protest Nazi occupation in Norway.

Even with the barrage of news coverage, it is tempting, especially from Hawaiʻi, to treat all of this as mainland drama. To tell ourselves we are too small, too far, too irrelevant. I used to believe some version of that story. My experience has proved it wrong often enough that I no longer find it comforting.

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Of course, Hawaiʻi isn’t just watching from the sidelines. We already have people showing up, week after week. There is a weekly protest on Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Waikīkī Tesla showroom at International Marketplace and another on Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the corner of Atkinson and Ala Moana. These are not glamorous acts, optimized for virality. That’s the point. Movements do not only run on big moments. They run on muscle memory.

And we have something else, too: infrastructure.

The Oʻahu Rapid Response Coalition is a community effort to track and document ICE and CBP activity on Oʻahu. They support Hawaiʻi’s migrant communities by sharing information and providing evidence that can help defend detained individuals.

Groups like Hawaiʻi J20+ have also been building the foundation for this moment: Know Your Rights trainings, protest safety information and tools for submitting testimony. They hold solidarity forums so people can hear directly from those impacted by ICE locally.

If I sound like I’m handing out homework, it’s because I am. But not the self-righteous kind. The practical kind. This is what “What can I do?” looks like when it stops being rhetorical.

Still, I know what people mean when they ask. They want to know whether any of it works.

During the Black Lives Matter protests, I interviewed political scientist Erica Chenoweth for a podcast I was working on. Chenoweth is known for the “3.5% rule,” a claim derived from historical research showing that no government has withstood a challenge when 3.5% of the population was mobilized against it during a peak event. Not cumulative attendance over months. Not likes. Not “I would have gone, but I had work.” Peak active participation.

Here are the caveats, which matter just as much as the number.

First, Chenoweth is explicit that 3.5% is a rule of thumb, not a magic threshold. Many successful nonviolent movements never reached that level of participation.

Second, the kind of campaigns where this is most relevant are maximalist campaigns, things like toppling regimes or ending an occupation. The United States is not that case in any simple way, and “success” is often incremental, local, and uneven.

Third, quantity is not the whole story. Quality matters: discipline, training, message clarity, and the ability to hold a broad coalition together.

So why use the number at all?

Because it punctures our favorite excuse: I’m just one person.

Let’s do the math in Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi’s population is approximately 1.4 million people as of July 2025. Three and a half percent of that is about 50,000 people. Not everyone. Not half the state. Roughly 50,000. Enough to fill the old Aloha Stadium. Big, yes. Also imaginable, especially if “participation” includes multiple forms of action.

Nonviolent collective action is not only marching. In the American tradition, it has included boycotts, mass noncooperation, strikes, sit-ins, church-led organizing, court-watching and documentation efforts that support legal defense. Some of these actions are public. Others are deliberately quiet. A movement needs both. Some people are built for the front line. Others are built for the clipboard, the phone tree, the training, the ride to court, the childcare, the meal train.

If you are reading this and thinking, I do not want to make speeches or knock on doors, you are not failing the movement. You are describing a boundary. The point is to choose a lane and stay in it long enough that you become reliable.

And then there is the lane that Hawaiʻi may be uniquely positioned to use: targeted economic pressure.

Here is a statistic that startled me, even though I spend too much money online like everyone else: Capital One Shopping’s “Online Shopping Statistics by State (2025)” report estimates that Hawaiʻi’s e-commerce revenue is equivalent to $24,425 per capita among adults 18 and older. The report also puts the average U.S. state at $3,612 per capita.

Those are estimates, and you should treat any single-source ranking with healthy skepticism. But even with caveats, the basic message is hard to ignore: we are unusually wired into the online economy. We click. We subscribe. We rely on delivery. We are also, by necessity, familiar with the fragile nature of supply chains and the power of concentrated consumer choices.

Imagine what it would look like if Hawaiʻi organized a targeted boycott that was disciplined and measurable. Not a vague “boycott everything,” which becomes a lifestyle brand for people with time. A specific demand, a specific time window, and a clear alternative. Seven days of shifting purchases to local businesses. Thirty days of canceling a subscription, then documenting it. A public tally. A story that is easy to understand and hard to dismiss.

Hawaiʻi is small enough to coordinate and visible enough that people pay attention when we move in the same direction. Our “brand” is often exploited for profit. We can also use it for pressure. It’s just one possibility for anyone trying to elevate our action.

So here is my request, as plainly as I can put it: do something. Stop waiting for the best moment or perfect strategy. If you want to act, act this week. Show up on Wednesday or Thursday. Sign up for a training. Support ORRC’s documentation and verification work. Listen to a solidarity forum. Choose a lane that you can sustain.

And if the voice in your head says none of it will matter because we are Hawaiʻi, I will tell you what life has taught me: you never know when someone is listening. That is exactly why you do the right thing anyway.