Asian immigration to Hawaii

Last updated
Asian immigration to Hawaii
Languages
English, Hawaiian Pidgin, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Japanese, Ilokano, Hindi, Vietnamese, Thai, other Languages of Asia
Religion
Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Irreligion, Others
Related ethnic groups
Asian Americans

Most early Asian settlers to the United States went to Hawaii. Most of these early immigrants moved to the islands as laborers to work on the pineapple, coconut, and sugarcane plantations. These early migrants have tended to stay, although a handful returned to their home countries. There has also been recent immigration to Hawaii from more ethnic Asian groups, including Thai, Indian, Indonesian, and Vietnamese.

Contents

Filipinos

Filipinos, like most other Southeast Asian immigrants to Hawaii, worked on the sugar plantations. In 2010, Filipinos surpassed Japanese as the largest ethnic group. At the time of the 2000 census, they were the third largest ethnic group in the islands.

85% of Filipinos in Hawaii trace their ancestry to the Ilocos Region of northern Luzon.[ citation needed ]

Japanese

Until 2010, people of Japanese ancestry made up the plurality of Hawaii's population. After the breakout of World War II, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the mainland U.S., who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into internment camps. However, in Hawai'i, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned. [1]

Korean

Koreans mainly came to the islands to work on the pineapple and sugar plantations, but a few, including the family of Mary Paik Lee, came to the mainland (usually California) after experiencing extreme discrimination.

Chinese

The Chinese came to the Hawaiian islands in 1778; the same year as English explorer James Cook. [2] Few also came to the islands among the crew of James Cook. Today, some Chinese born on the islands can claim to be seventh generation.

75% of Hawaii’s Chinese community are Cantonese with ancestry from Zhongshan, Guangdong.[ citation needed ]

Indians

People of Indian origin did not come to Hawaii in sizable numbers, and those who did did not stay for long. Many early Indian immigrants stopped in Hawaii only to make enough money to sail on to the mainland anywhere from the mid to late 1800s to the 1900s.

A notable Indian in Hawaii was Dalip Singh Saund, who on September 13, 1910, arrived in Honolulu from his home village in Punjab, India at the age of 14. He labored in the sugarcane fields for about two months to earn enough money to continue on to California. On November 18, 1910, he arrived on Angel Island. At one point, Saund was the nation's largest celery grower.

Okinawans

When Japan annexed Okinawa (formerly known as the Ryukyu Kingdom), the Okinawan economy started to decline. [3] As a result, there was a growing demand for the Japanese government to allow Okinawans to migrate elsewhere. The first of these Okinawans came to Hawaii in 1899 under the supervision of Kyuzo Toyama, who is known as the "father of Okinawan emigration". [4]

Okinawans in Hawaii tend to view themselves as a distinct group from the Japanese in Hawaii. [5] The Center for Okinawan Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi (Mānoa) estimates that the Okinawan community numbers anywhere between 45,000-50,000 people, or 3% of Hawaii’s population. [6]

Living Conditions of Asian Immigrants

The massive influx of Asian American immigrants shifted the demographic dynamic of Hawaii to a majority Asian community. Asian immigrants of all kinds, including Native Hawaiians, often came over as laborers and were subject to harsh working conditions in sugar plantations - 10 hour workdays, relentless lunas, and squalid working conditions. [7]

Importantly, the proliferation of sugar plantations in Hawaii were owned and operated by white Americans, bringing over ideologies of white supremacy and colonialism with them. This laid the groundwork for the racial hierarchy where both Native Hawaiians and Asian immigrants were treated as disposable cheap labor. Racially discriminatory wage control and fines were instituted by the white plantation owners in order to maintain control over the ever-diversifying ethnic demographic of Hawaii. [7]

Despite these challenges the Asian laborers faced, many of the farm laborers banded together through strikes and multi-ethnic unions. Japanese, Filipino, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese workers had made the Hawaii Laborers' Association - a multi-ethnic union that fought for workers' rights while also fostering a multi-ethnic camaraderie. [7]

Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism refers to the idea that, instead of typical colonialism where an external nation is extracting wealth from an area, settler colonialism is where the colonizers actually migrate to the land of the colonized. These settlers then ultimately become the majority population and slowly push out the indigenous populations from control of their own land. [8]

An often overlooked aspect of this increased Asian immigration to Hawaii as cheap plantation laborers is the social, economic, and political effect of the shifting demographic on Native Hawaiians. Settler colonialism in Hawaii is a unique case compared to others historically because of the Asian ancestry (Polynesian) of the indigenous Hawaiians. As such, there was a two-fold effect of settler colonialism on the indigenous population: on top of the white plantation owners acting as colonists, the Asian settlers also acted as colonists via their surging immigration counts pushing the indigenous Hawaiians to the fringe socially, economically, and politically. [8]

White plantation owners would lump the Asian immigrants and indigenous Hawaiians together in terms of their racially discriminatory policies, while Asian immigrants implicitly participated in the marginalization of Native Hawaiians. Ultimately, these native Hawaiian populations became a minority in their own land, as they lost the rights to their land and lost political influence to the large plantation companies and large immigrant population. [8]

See also

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaii</span> U.S. state

Hawaii is an island state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) southwest of the U.S. mainland. It is the only state not on the North American mainland, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state in the tropics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waipahu, Hawaii</span> Census-designated place in Hawaii, United States

Waipahu is a former sugarcane plantation town and now census-designated place (CDP) located in the ʻEwa District on the island of Oʻahu in the City & County of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, United States. As of the 2020 census, the CDP population was 43,485. The U.S. postal code for Waipahu is 96797.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asian Americans</span> Americans of Asian ancestry

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry. Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans. Furthermore, Central Asians are not mentioned in any census racial category. The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japanese diaspora</span> Japanese emigrants and descendants residing in foreign countries outside of Japan

The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (日系) or as Nikkeijin (日系人), comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded as early as the 15th century to the Philippines, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji period (1868–1912), when Japanese emigrated to the Philippines and to the Americas. There was significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the period of Japanese colonial expansion (1875–1945); however, most of these emigrants repatriated to Japan after the 1945 surrender of Japan ended World War II in Asia.

The terms multiracial people or mixed-race people refer to people who are of more than one race and the terms multi-ethnic people or ethnically mixed people refer to people who are of more than one ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed-race people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad, Coloured, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use. "Melezi" are called the offspring of Muslim Romani men and woman of host populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plate lunch</span> Quintissentially Hawaiian meal

The plate lunch is a quintessentially Hawaiian meal, roughly analogous to Southern U.S. meat-and-threes. The combination of American and pan-Asian influence makes the plate lunch unique to Hawaii.

The Chinese in Hawaii constitute about 4.7% of the state's population, most of whom (75%) are Cantonese people with ancestors from Zhongshan in Guangdong. This number does not include people of mixed Chinese and Hawaiian descent. If all people with Chinese ancestry in Hawaii are included, they form about 1/3 of Hawaii's entire population. As United States citizens, they are a group of Chinese Americans. A minority of this group have Hakka ancestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japanese in Hawaii</span> History of Japanese people in Hawaii

The Japanese in Hawaii are the second largest ethnic group in Hawaii. At their height in 1920, they constituted 43% of Hawaii's population. They now number about 16.7% of the islands' population, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. The U.S. Census categorizes mixed-race individuals separately, so the proportion of people with some Japanese ancestry is likely much larger.

The term picture bride refers to the practice in the early 20th century of immigrant workers in Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Brazil selecting brides from their native countries via a matchmaker, who paired bride and groom using only photographs and family recommendations of the possible candidates. This is an abbreviated form of the traditional matchmaking process and is similar in a number of ways to the concept of the mail-order bride.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Puerto Rican immigration to Hawaii</span> Puerto Ricans began moving to Hawaii in 1900

Puerto Rican migration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Consequently, Hawaiian sugarcane plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers from Puerto Rico. In thirteen separate groups, 5883 Puerto Rican men, women and children traveled by ship, train then ship again to the islands of Hawaii to begin their new lives in the sugar plantations.

Asian immigration to the United States refers to immigration to the United States from part of the continent of Asia, which includes East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Asian-origin populations have historically been in the territory that would eventually become the United States since the 16th century. The first major wave of Asian immigration occurred in the late 19th century, primarily in Hawaii and the West Coast. Asian Americans experienced exclusion, and limitations to immigration, by the United States law between 1875 and 1965, and were largely prohibited from naturalization until the 1940s. Since the elimination of Asian exclusion laws and the reform of the immigration system in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, there has been a large increase in the number of immigrants to the United States from Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race and ethnicity in the United States</span>

The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States census recognized five racial categories, as well as people who belong to two or more of the racial categories. The United States also recognizes the broader notion of ethnicity. The 2000 census and 2010 American Community Survey inquired about the "ancestry" of residents, while the 2020 census allowed people to enter their "origins". The Census Bureau also classified respondents as either Hispanic or Latino, identifying as an ethnicity, which comprises the minority group in the nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sugar plantations in Hawaii</span> Overview of sugarcane production in Hawaii

Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaiʻi by its first inhabitants in approximately 600 AD and was observed by Captain Cook upon arrival in the islands in 1778. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a century. The sugar grown and processed in Hawaiʻi was shipped primarily to the United States and, in smaller quantities, globally. Sugarcane and pineapple plantations were the largest employers in Hawaiʻi. Today the sugarcane plantations are gone, production having moved to other countries.

Mexican settlement in the Philippines comprises a multilingual Filipino ethnic group composed of Philippine citizens with Mexican ancestry. The immigration of Mexicans to the Philippines dates back to the Spanish period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Asian Americans</span>

Asian American history is the history of ethnic and racial groups in the United States who are of Asian descent. The term "Asian American" was an idea invented in the 1960s to bring together Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans for strategic political purposes. Soon other groups of Asian origin, such as Korean, Indian, and Vietnamese Americans were added. For example, while many Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants arrived as unskilled workers in significant numbers from 1850 to 1905 and largely settled in Hawaii and California, many Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong Americans arrived in the United States as refugees following the Vietnam War. These separate histories have often been overlooked in conventional frameworks of Asian American history.

Hawaii has been a notable destination for Korean immigration to the United States since the early 20th century.

Asian people are the people of Asia. The term may also refer to their descendants. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an Asian is “a person of Asian descent”.

People of Filipino descent make up a large and growing part of the State of Hawaii's population. In 2000 they were the third largest ethnic group and represented 22.8% of the population, but more recently, according to the 2010 United States Census data indicates they have become the second largest ethnicity in Hawaii, after Whites.

Portuguese immigration to Hawaii began in 1878 when laborers from Madeira and the Azores migrated there to work in the sugarcane plantations. By the end of 1911, nearly 16,000 Portuguese immigrants had arrived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spanish immigration to Hawaii</span>

Spanish immigration to Hawaii began in 1907 when the Hawaiian government and the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) decided to supplement their ongoing importation of Portuguese workers to Hawaii with workers recruited from Spain. Importation of Spanish laborers, along with their families, continued until 1913, at which time more than 9,000 Spanish immigrants had been brought in, most recruited to work primarily on the Hawaiian sugarcane plantations.

References

  1. ↑ Ogawa, Dennis M. and Fox, Jr., Evarts C. Japanese Americans, from Relocation to Redress. 1991, page 135.
  2. ↑ "Hawaii's first Chinese - Hawaii History - Chinatown". www.hawaiihistory.org. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  3. ↑ Clayton, Bruce D. (2004). Shotokan's Secret: The Hidden Truth Behind Karate's Fighting Origins. Black Belt Communications. ISBN   978-0-89750-144-6.
  4. ↑ "The Century of Emigration". rca.open.ed.jp. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  5. ↑ Matsumoto, Scott Y. "Okinawa Migrants to Hawaii" (PDF). Semantic Scholar: 125. S2CID   131210898. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-21.
  6. ↑ "Center for Okinawan Studies" . Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  7. 1 2 3 Takaki, Ronald (1998). Strangers from a Different Shore. Little, Brow, and Company. pp. 132–176. ISBN   978-0316831307.
  8. 1 2 3 Landgraf, Kapulani (2008). Asian Setter Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai'i. U of Hawaii Press. pp. 1–31. ISBN   9780824833008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.