TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Filipinos in Hawaii Fastest Growing Ethnic Group

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Filipinos in Hawaii Fastest Growing Ethnic Group

I've been hearing people in Maui speaking Tagalog and Ilocano, and I recalled that the Filipino population is large in Hawaii. I wasn't sure what the numbers are, so I looked it up and found an article by Belinda A. Aquino and Federico V. Magdalena that says:

"According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 15 percent of the Hawaii state population – or 170,635 – identified themselves as "Filipino" (see Figure 1). However, the Census allowed citizens to opt for more than one ethnicity ("mixed race"), and another 105,728 identified themselves as "part-Filipino." Taken together, Filipinos and part-Filipinos constitute 275,728 or nearly 23 percent of the state population, slightly more than the Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian population. About 70 percent of the Filipino population live on the island of Oahu. While they are a minority population in the state, they form the majority (at least 60%) in Lanai island, Maui county."

This is an old U.S. Census and I'm sure the 23% count has gone up.

The history of Filipinos in Hawaii dates back to 1906 when 15 sugar cane workers were recruted by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association to work on the sugar cane plantations in Hawaii. A hundred years later, Filipino American Governor Ben Cayetano oversaw the centennial observance of the event.

Ben Cayetano, 5th Governor of Hawaii, photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Filipinos are the fasting growing ethnic minority in Hawaii primarily because of migration.

Tune in for more updates on my visit to Maui, dear Readers.

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Tags: travel, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Hawaii, Maui, Filipino population

This is all for now,
Cecilia

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.