Chinese immigration to Hawaii

{{Infobox ethnic group

|group = Pākē

|population = 198,711 (2010) U.S. Census Bureau: QT-P8: Race Reporting for the Asian Population by Selected Categories: 2010

|image =

|languages = Cantonese, English, Hawaiian, Hakka

|religions = Roman Catholicism, Protestantism
Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism

|footnotes =

}}

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.{{sfn|Nordyke|Lee|1989|pages=196-197}} Visiting the Sandwich Islands in 1794, Captain George Vancouver reported seeing one Chinese resident.{{sfn|Nordyke|Lee|1989|p=197}}

File:Chinese Family in Hawaii 1893.jpg

Encouraged by King Kamehameha I, Hawaii exported sandalwood to China from 1792 to around 1843.{{sfn|Nordyke|Lee|1989|p=197}} As a result, Chinese people dubbed the Hawaiian Islands "Tan Heung Shan" ({{zh|t=檀香山}}), roughly "Fragrant Sandalwood Hills" in Cantonese.{{sfn|Takaki|1998|p=31}}{{sfn|Glick|1980|p=2}} Between 1852 and 1899, around 46,000 Chinese immigrated to Hawaii.{{sfn|Glick|1980|p=18}} In 1900, the Chinese population in Hawaii was 25,767.{{sfn|Takaki|1998|p=38}} 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.{{sfn|Glick|1980|p=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.{{cite book|title=People and Cultures of Hawaii: A Psychocultural Profile|url=https://archive.org/details/peopleculturesof00john|url-access=registration|first1=John F. |last1=McDermott|first2=Wen-Shing |last2=Tseng |first3=Thomas W. |last3=Maretzki|year=1980|isbn=9780824807061}} 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.{{cite book|title=Ethnic Genealogy: A Research Guide |url=https://archive.org/details/ethnicgenealogyr00smit |url-access=registration |first=Jessie |last=Carney Smith|year=1983 |isbn=9780313225932 }} 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.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GrvXiBNOsO0C&q=portuguese%20women%20marry%20chinese&pg=PA154|title=Interracial Marriage in Hawaii|author=Romanzo Adams|year=2005|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|page=396|isbn=978-1-4179-9268-3|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite journal|title=Interethnic Marriage and Divorce in Hawaii A Panel Study of 1968 First Marriages|journal=Marriage & Family Review|volume=5|author=Margaret M. Schwertfeger|year=1982|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|pages=49–59|doi=10.1300/J002v05n01_05}} Portuguese and other European women married Chinese men.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_j2lXoxMIiAC&q=pattern+and+Portuguese+women+marrying+Chinese+males&pg=PA254|title=Divorce: crisis, challenge, or relief?|author=David Anthony Chiriboga, Linda S. Catron|year=1991|publisher=NYU Press|page=254|isbn=978-0-8147-1450-8|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUL3iXlwKQgC&q=and+Portuguese+women+marrying+Chinese+males+pattern&pg=PA58|title=Intermarriage in the United States, Volume 5|author=Gary A. Cretser, Joseph J. Leon|year=1982|publisher=Psychology Press|page=58|isbn=978-0-917724-60-2|access-date=2010-07-14}} 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.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GrvXiBNOsO0C&q=38%20children%20portuguese%20chinese%20parentage&pg=PA32|title=Interracial Marriage in Hawaii|author=Romanzo Adams|year=2005|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|page=396|isbn=978-1-4179-9268-3|access-date=2010-07-14}} A large amount of mingling took place between Chinese and European, Chinese men married Portuguese, Spanish, Hawaiian, Caucasian-Hawaiian, etc.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hzoXAAAAYAAJ&q=portuguese%20women%20marry%20chinese&pg=RA2-PA27|title=Bulletin, Issues 13-18|author=United States Bureau of Education|year=1921|publisher=U.S. G.P.O.|page=27|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0hSmD_8bhpwC&q=portuguese%20women%20marry%20chinese&pg=PA27|title=Bulletin, Issue 16|author=United States. Office of Education|year=1920|publisher=U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education|page=27|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dewAAAAAYAAJ&q=portuguese%20women%20marry%20chinese&pg=PA492|title=American journal of physical anthropology, Volume 3|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology|year=1920|publisher=A. R. Liss|page=492|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUL3iXlwKQgC&q=portuguese%20women%20marry%20chinese&pg=PA53|title=Intermarriage in the United States, Volume 5|author=Gary A. Cretser, Joseph J. Leon|year=1982|publisher=Routledge|page=111|isbn=978-0-917724-60-2|access-date=2010-07-14}} Only one Chinese man was recorded marrying an American woman.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/journalheredity10assogoog|quote=chinese marry portuguese.|title=The Journal of heredity, Volume 10|author=American Genetic Association|year=1919|publisher=American Genetic Association|page=[https://archive.org/details/journalheredity10assogoog/page/n52 42]|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pf_zAAAAMAAJ&q=chinese%20marry%20portuguese&pg=PA42|title=J hered, Volume 10|author=American Genetic Association|year=1919|publisher=American Genetic Association|page=42|access-date=2010-07-14}} Chinese men in Hawaii also married Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek, and half-white women.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/newoutlookvolum08smitgoog|quote=Intermarriages also took place between Chinese men and Porto Rican, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek women.|title=New Outlook, Volume 81|author=Alfred Emanuel Smith|year=1905|publisher=Outlook Publishing Company, Inc.|page=[https://archive.org/details/newoutlookvolum08smitgoog/page/n1106 988]|access-date=2010-07-14}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=57_QAAAAMAAJ&q=Intermarriages+also+took+place+between+Chinese+men+and+Porto+Rican,+Portuguese,+Japanese,+Greek+women|title=The Outlook, Volume 81

|year=1905|publisher=Outlook Co.|page=988|access-date=2010-07-14}} There was a communal ban on intermarriages between the two groups for the first generation of migrants.Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth-century America, Paul R. Spickard In the middle of the 19th century, Hakka immigrants in America were excluded from membership in the Chinese organizations.{{cite book|title=THE HAKKA ODYSSEY & THEIR TAIWAN HOMELAND |first=Clyde |last=Kiang}}

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.

References

External links

[http://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10524/46254 Chinese of Hawaii] (1929 directory, 2 volumes, full text online)
[http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/2572 Chinese Societies in Hawaii] (2008–2009, 86 society descriptions, full text online)
[http://www.firstchinese.org/ First Chinese Church of Hawaii]
[http://www.hawaiian-roots.com/chinese_4.htm List of Chinese-Hawaiian surnames]
[http://www.misschinatown.com/ Miss Chinatown Hawaii]

Hawaii

Category:Chinese-American history

Category:History of immigration to Hawaii

Hawaii

Chinese immigration to Hawaii

History

Religion

List of notable Chinese people from Hawaiʻi

See also

References

Further reading

External links