Pacific Islander immigrants

SIGNIFICANCE: Although Pacific Islander immigrants have often received less attention than most other immigrant communities, more Pacific Islanders reside in the United States—including the Pacific Island state Hawaii—than remain in many of their island homelands. Coming from many separate islands with many very different cultures and languages, Islander immigrants are almost impossible to identify in early US censuses, in which they were typically counted under the category of "others" or lumped with Asians.

Pacific Islander immigration to the United States is best understood by recognizing that Pacific Oceanic peoples have a long history of long-distance ocean voyages. Prehistoric inhabitants of South Pacific islands—especially the widespread archipelagoes of Melanesia and Polynesia—constructed sturdy canoes and developed surprisingly advanced navigation systems to find their way around the distantly separated islands. Their island-based regional interactions resulted in marriages, trade contacts, and political relationshipsincluding warfare. During the sixteenth century, the Islanders' regional dynamics were disrupted by the arrival of European explorers, who brought novel technologies, new diseases, and very different cultural concepts to the region.

The American Presence in the Pacific

Over the ensuing centuries, the Pacific Islands and their inhabitants came increasingly under the domination of Euro-American political rule, economic expansion, and religious beliefs. With increasing contacts came increased population movementsincluding European settlements on many islands. Many indigenous inhabitants moved away from the islandssome relocated within the Pacific region, others went as far as Europe and the Americas. Most of these population movements were sporadic, small-scale, and poorly documented.

By the mid-nineteenth century, American whaling ships operated regularly in the Pacific Ocean, and Samoans and Hawaiians worked in the whaling industry. Ultimately, some of these people ended up far from their island homes. Oceanic people were further incorporated into American spheres by the sudden US colonial expansion into the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and Hawaii between 1898 and 1900when the United States annexed the Hawaiian islands and occupied Spain's Pacific Island possessions after winning the Spanish-American War.

Extensive military, missionary, and trading links between the United States and its Pacific Island possessions helped prompt large numbers of Islanders to immigrate to the mainland United States. During World War II (1941–1945), the presence of American military bases on many of the region's islands brought the US war with Japan directly into the homelands of Pacific Islanders. The result was tremendous carnage and destruction that would contribute to postwar migration.

Push-Pull Factors

Pacific Islander immigration can be broadly understood as the product of several push and pull factors that operated across the islands and made the United States a compelling migration destination. Push factors included local political conditionssuch as Tonga's monarchywhich many commoners find oppressive. Environmental disasters were also important, especially hurricanes, which often create havoc on small islands. Other push factors included:

• economic conditionsespecially low wages on many islands
• limited higher educational facilitieshealth services for treating some ailments
• limited opportunities for skilled and professional workers

The most important pull factors that drew Islanders to the United States were relief from all the Islanders' push factorsnon-oppressive government, greater safety from natural disasters, higher wages, and greater educational and professional opportunities. Moreover, established Pacific Islander communities within the United States provided kin networks that ease adjustments to immigration by giving newcomers places to stay on their arrival and strong support groups. Local contacts also assisted new immigrants with health, educational, and work opportunities.

Population Data

The hundreds of populated islands spread across the Pacific Oceanparticularly in the South Pacificwere made of independent nations, European dependencies, and American possessions. A sizable number of Pacific Islanders lived on territories that were incorporated into the United States during the late nineteenth century. Some sporadic Pacific Islander immigration to the mainland US probably occurred before that time, but most Islanders did not begin coming to the United States until the 1950s and 1960s. This increased during the 1970s.

At the time of the 1990 US Census, 365,000 Pacific Islanders lived in the United States. This figure contrasted with about 30,000 Islanders living in Australia and 531,000 in New Zealand. Ten years later, the US Pacific Islander population jumped to 874,000. However, a variety of changes in the methods used in the 2000 US Census meant the 2000 data are not directly comparable to earlier census information. For example, the 2000 figure for total Islanders includes some people who also reported some non-Pacific Islander ancestry.

According to a 2020 Census Bureau estimate, there were over 1.6 million Pacific Islanders in the United Statesprimarily located in Hawaii. Hawaii and Alaska together were home to more than half of the Pacific Islander population in the country. Other states with a large Pacific Islander population included Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Utah. Much of this population concentration occurred as the result of chain migration, with important founding families often identifiable in many of these locations.

In Utah, religion played a special role. Many of the early Hawaiian and Tongan immigrants to the state were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsknown as the Mormon Church. The church had long sent missionaries to the islands and has had particular success in Tonga, and Mormon links have been strong throughout Utah, Hawaii, and Tongawhich explained the ongoing shifts in population. There were also strong connections between the Mormon tertiary education facility, Brigham Young University (BYU)founded in Provo, Utah, in 1875and BYU-Hawaiifounded in 1955. The Mormon Church assisted many Pacific Islander church members immigrate to the mainland United Statesespecially to California and Utah.

Intermarriage and other intercultural links were also facilitated by participation in church activities. Many Christian congregations offered services in Pacific Islander languagessome had Pacific Islander ministers in areas with high numbers of Oceanic people. Pacific Islanders living in the United States tended to identify socially through their memberships in specific church congregationsmuch as people living on the islands identified themselves as originating from specific villages on specific islands.

Pacific Islander American Culture

Although Pacific Islander groups originated from different island archipelagoes and their members possessed different cultural practices and spoke different languages, certain broad cultural norms prevailed across the islands that were imported to the United States in varying degrees. For example, in contrast to the American cultural emphasis on individualistic traits, Oceanic peoples valued collectivismwhich encouraged them to subordinate their personal interests to those of the family or wider kinship network. This trait was often described by members of the Pacific Islander community as the respect owed by young people to their eldershere were many cultural ideals about how it should be expressedincluding lack of questioning of the older generation by youngsters, and the lowering of one's eyes and body height before elders. Differences between American and Islander styles of socialization sometimes resulted in conflicts between generational groups. Elder immigrants believed in greater levels of communal involvement and decision-making power by family networks, while their American-born children tended to focus more on their individual needs and desires and personal decision-making.

Divisions between younger and older generations were also exacerbated by language differences. Older immigrants typically found it more challenging to learn new languages than their children did, which often meant children had greater skills in English than their parents or grandparents. Pacific Islander children who grew up in the United States tended not to learn the languages of their parentsor to learn to speak them only at rudimentary levels. Community elders may have consequently felt disappointment when young members of their communities did not speak their home languages well enough to participate in traditional orations at culturally important eventssuch as weddings and funerals.

Family members who were speakers of languages other than English found their employment opportunities limited and had difficulty communicating with mainstream cultural brokerssuch as teachers, community leaders, and government officials. Outsiders often did not realize the extent of these language differences when they interacted with Pacific Islanderswhose cultural norms encouraged politeness expressed through head nods or other body language that seemed to indicate agreement or understanding to Americans.

Accustomed to a communal way of life, Pacific Islanders often cooked and ate together and lived near one another. This sometimes translated to situations where members of extended families shared American houses designed for small nuclear families. Their non-Islander neighbors and local social workers and health authorities found it difficult to understand why so many people would wish to live together. Pacific Islanders also tended to view kinship ties in a more expansive manner than non-Islander Americans. For example, they were more likely to include all their extended family members in their conception of "family"not merely members of their nuclear families, as Americans are more likely to think of "family."

These broader conceptions of family also included adopted siblings. In the Pacific, people often practice formal and informal adoption. For example, if a woman had no biological children, her brother may give her one or two of his own children, whom she would then raise as her own. Although the adoptions may never be formalized, local norms viewed this arrangement as an expression of love from a brother for his sister and did not devalue the adopted child or children. Children also lived for considerable periods of time with relatives in order to attend schools or for other reasons. Many of these informal adoptions were never officially documented. For this reason, Pacific people often described households with fluctuating numbers of children and acknowledge them as "sisters" and "brothers"individuals who may not have been biologically or legally related to them. These practices caused problems to families wishing to immigrate to the United States together or among those who were in the United States and wished to obtain health care and educational benefits.

Pacific Islanders often settled in US towns with sizable Pacific Islander populationsallowing them to replicate much of their island lifestyle. Older immigrants especially wished to retain important aspects of their home cultures. For example, Samoans practiced their Fa'a-Samoa belief systemthe "Samoan way"and Tongans their Anga Fakatonga belief system "Tongan way." At times, however, maintaining cultural norms simply meant eating typical island foods.

US-Pacific Island Links

Many Pacific Islanders living in the United States during the early twenty-first century believed they would one day return to their island homelands. This belief was more typical of the older first-generation immigrants than younger American-born family members. Reverse migration did occur, but less frequently than immigrants typically imagined when they arrive in the US. These immigrants dreamt of making plenty of money and living a life of style, but when many elderly Pacific Islanders were ready to retire, they found little in the islands to which to return. Their family members and friends were spread across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and other islands. Elderly Islanders may also have had health needs that were best treated in the United States. Despite this, many Pacific Islanders maintained a strong connection to their island homelands.

Though few of these immigrants returned to the islands permanently, many visited. There was much prestige in visiting and providing gifts for those on the islands. Moreover, maintaining links to the homelands and their people was important for community well-being and self-identity.

In addition to taking gifts with them on visits home, people in the US often send remittancessuch as money or goodsback to the islands. Island homelands benefited immensely from these cash infusions into their local economies. Some immigrants loaded large shipping containers with goods to send home. Like other traditions, this meant more to older members of the immigrant communities than to their offspring. Although many young people opposed the idea of sending remittances and gifts, they sometimes became involved in this exchange network. There was a tradition in both the US and other diaspora communities of sending misbehaving youngsters back to their homelands for socialization into appropriate cultural norms. After miscreant children spent time on the islands looked after by extended family members, they were deemed sufficiently well-behaved to be returned to their US homes.

Twenty-First Century Demographics

In 2022, the number of native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the United States was placed at 1.8 million. The largest Pacific Islander group in the United States was Native Hawaiians with 714,847 people, followed by Samoans with 264,392 people, and Guamaniansor Chamorros152,006 people. Approximately 70 percent of the Pacific Islander population in the United States fit into these three ethnic categories. Additional groups represented in the census included Tongans with 65,037 people, Fijians with 49,581 people, and Marshallese with 38,193 people.

Census data also showed on average that members of these immigrant groups in 2020 were young. They included large numbers of children and individuals in their child-bearing years. Because Oceanic peoples tended to favor large families, the US Pacific Islander population continued to grow rapidly through natural increase, along with ongoing immigration from the islands. However, many community activists expressed concern that census figures underrepresented the actual number of Pacific Islanders in the United States, worries that drew particular attention prior to the 2020 census. Advocates also noted potential confusion over a census question regarding citizenship statusas many Pacific Islander immigrants from areas under US sovereignty are US nationals but not official US citizens.

Another trend has been growth in the number of Pacific Islanders who identify with more than one ethnic group—in the 2020 census, this group accounted for more than half of the Pacific Islander population. There were already high levels of intermarriage among different island communities and with non-Pacific Islander people. Although this generalization held less with Tongan and Fijian populations, it suggested that Pacific Islander communities in the United States were increasing in their internal diversity. Older Islanders tended to worry that marriage with outsiders would weaken the communal cohesion and eventually cause the loss of languages and cultural traditions, but younger immigrants did not typically share these concerns.

Other notable census survey data regarding this community indicated:

• 6.6 percent served in the military
• Almost 90 percent attained a high school diploma
• 26 percent obtained a college bachelor's degree
• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders owned 8,324 businesses
• The 2020 life expectancies at birth for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders was 80.8 years83.2 years for women and 78.5 years for men.
• In comparison to other ethnic groups, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders had higher rates of smoking, alcohol consumption, and obesity.
• Leading causes of death among Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders included cancer, heart disease, unintentional injuriesaccidentsstroke, and diabetes.

An issue for all ethnic community members living in the United States was the prevalence of stereotypes and ongoing discrimination. Pacific Islanders could be easy targets because they were often identifiable based on their appearance, which made American-born members of the community equally vulnerable. Members of Pacific Islander communities were often active in service organizations and educational initiatives to counteract the local effects of these stereotypes. Communities could harshly sanction members who acted according to the stereotypessuch as those who joined gangs or were violent to their familiessince this behavior affected the entire group in a negative manner. Communities also celebrated the achievements of Pacific Islanders and strove to make mainstream Americans aware of these success stories and the history of their ethnic group in the United States. Individuals have celebrated and examined Pacific Islander identity in literature and other media.

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