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 (including the Chinese-Hawaiians) 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.
History
Historical records indicated that the earliest presence of Chinese in Hawaii dates back to the late 18th century: a few sailors in 1778 with Captain
James Cook's journey, more in 1788 with
John Meares, and some in 1789 with American trader
Simon Metcalfe, who reached
Maui from
Macau.[2] Visiting the
Sandwich Islands in 1794, Captain
George Vancouver reported seeing one Chinese resident.[3]
Encouraged by King
Kamehameha I, Hawaii exported
sandalwood to China from 1792 to around 1843.[3] As a result, Chinese people dubbed the Hawaiian Islands "Tan Heung Shan" (
Chinese: 檀香山), roughly "Fragrant
Sandalwood Hills" in Cantonese.[4][5] Between 1852 and 1899, around 46,000 Chinese immigrated to Hawaii.[6] In 1900, the Chinese population in Hawaii was 25,767.[7] More of these migrants were from
Fukien and spoke
Fukienese rather than
Cantonese. An American missionary observing Maui in 1856 found that the primarily Cantonese shopkeepers and Fukienese laborers communicated in the
Hawaiian language.[8]
Although many came as laborers for
sugar plantations in Hawaii, they concentrated on getting education for their children. When their contracts expired, many decided to remain in Hawaii and opened businesses in areas such as
Chinatown. By 1950 most Chinese American men in Hawaii were educated and held good jobs. Today 95% of Chinese Americans in Hawaii live in Honolulu.
A significant minority of early Chinese immigrants to
Hawaii, and even fewer to the
Continental US, were Hakka, and much of the animosity between the Hakka and
Punti Cantonese people carried over.[9] In the first half of the 1800s, around 30 percent of Chinese in Hawaii were of Hakka, while only about 3 percent in the West Coast were Hakka.[10] The largest surge of immigration in that century occurred after an 1876 treaty between the US and
Kingdom of Hawaii led to an increased need for labor.
The majority of marriages between Chinese men and European women in Hawaii were between
Cantonese men and
Portuguese women.[11][12][13] Portuguese and other European women married Chinese men.[14][15] These unions between Cantonese men and Portuguese women resulted in children of mixed Cantonese-Portuguese parentage, called Cantonese-Portuguese. For two years to June 30, 1933, 38 of these children were born, they were classified as pure Chinese because their fathers were Chinese.[16] A large amount of mingling took place between Chinese and European, Chinese men married Portuguese, Spanish, Hawaiian, Caucasian-Hawaiian, etc.[17][18][19][20] Only one Chinese man was recorded marrying an American woman.[21][22] Chinese men in Hawaii also married Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek, and half-white women.[23][24] There was a communal ban on intermarriages between the two groups for the first generation of migrants.[25] In the middle of the 19th century, Hakka immigrants in America were excluded from membership in the Chinese organizations.[26]
Religion
Prior to the arrival of
Christian missionaries in Hawaii, the early Chinese settlers were adherents of
Buddhism,
Taoism, and
Confucianism. Some even blended aspects of native Hawaiian beliefs into their own belief systems.
Today, due to the work of Christian missionaries in the late 19th century and the 20th century, many of the Chinese in Hawaii are adherents of
Protestant and
Roman Catholic Christianity. Still, about 100 Buddhist and ancestral temples remain. The minority who adhere to traditional Chinese religions pay pilgrimage to their ancestors annually. However, no accurate statistics of adherents within the Chinese community in Hawaiʻi are available.
^Margaret M. Schwertfeger (1982). "Interethnic Marriage and Divorce in Hawaii A Panel Study of 1968 First Marriages". Marriage & Family Review. 5. Kessinger Publishing: 49–59.
doi:
10.1300/J002v05n01_05.
^United States Bureau of Education (1921).
Bulletin, Issues 13-18. U.S. G.P.O. p. 27. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
^United States. Office of Education (1920).
Bulletin, Issue 16. U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education. p. 27. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
^American Genetic Association (1919).
The Journal of heredity, Volume 10. American Genetic Association. p.
42. Retrieved 2010-07-14. chinese marry portuguese.
^American Genetic Association (1919).
J hered, Volume 10. American Genetic Association. p. 42. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
^Alfred Emanuel Smith (1905).
New Outlook, Volume 81. Outlook Publishing Company, Inc. p.
988. Retrieved 2010-07-14. Intermarriages also took place between Chinese men and Porto Rican, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek women.
Takaki, Ronald (1998) [1989]. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (2nd ed.). New York: Back Bay Books.
ISBN978-0-316-83130-7.
OCLC1074009567.