The Chinese in Hawaii constitute about 4.7% of the state's population, most of whom (75%) are

Cantonese people The Cantonese people ( zh, s=广府人, t=廣府人, j=gwong2 fu2 jan4, cy=Gwóngfú Yàhn, first=t, labels=no) or Yue people ( zh, s=粤人, t=粵人, j=jyut6 jan4, cy=Yuht Yàhn, first=t, labels=no), are a Han Chinese subgroup originating fro ...

with ancestors from

Zhongshan Zhongshan ( zh, c=中山 ), alternately romanized via Cantonese as Chungshan, is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. As of the 2020 census, the whole city with 4,418,060 inhabitants is n ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

. This number does not include people of mixed

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

and Hawaiian descent. If all people with Chinese ancestry in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

(including the Chinese-Hawaiians) are included, they form about 1/3 of Hawaii's entire population. As

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

citizens, they are a group of

Chinese Americans Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

. A minority of this group have

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

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 Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

's journey, more in 1788 with

John Meares John Meares (c. 1756 – 1809) was an English navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war. Career Meares' father was Charles Meares, "formerly a ...

, and some in 1789 with American trader

Simon Metcalfe Simon Metcalfe (also spelled Metcalf) (April 23, 1741 – 1794) was a British-born American surveyor and one of the first American maritime fur traders to visit the Pacific Northwest coast. As early visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in 1789, Metca ...

, who reached

Maui Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...

from

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. Visiting the

Sandwich Islands The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll. Formerly ca ...

in 1794, Captain

George Vancouver Captain (Royal Navy), Captain George Vancouver (; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern West Coast of the Uni ...

reported seeing one Chinese resident. Chinese Family in Hawaii 1893

Encouraged by King

Kamehameha I Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kauʻi Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; to May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii ...

, Hawaii exported

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

to China from 1792 to around 1843. As a result, Chinese people dubbed the Hawaiian Islands "Tan Heung Shan" (), roughly "Fragrant

Sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

Hills" in Cantonese. Between 1852 and 1899, around 46,000 Chinese immigrated to Hawaii. In 1900, the Chinese population in Hawaii was 25,767. More of these migrants were from Fukien and spoke Fukienese rather than

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

. An American missionary observing Maui in 1856 found that the primarily Cantonese shopkeepers and Fukienese laborers communicated in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an offi ...

. Although many came as laborers for

sugar plantations 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.Deerr, 1949 Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growt ...

, 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 Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

. 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

, and even fewer to the

Continental US The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The ter ...

, were Hakka, and much of the animosity between the Hakka and

Punti ''Punti'' ( zh, t=本地, j=bun2 dei6, l=locals) is a Cantonese endonym referring to the native Cantonese people of Guangdong and Guangxi. In Hong Kong, ''Punti'' designates Weitou dialect-speaking locals in contrast to non-Weitou speaker ...

Cantonese people carried over. 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. The largest surge of immigration in that century occurred after an 1876 treaty between the US and

Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian:

ɛ ɐwˈpuni həˈvɐjʔi Latin epsilon or open E (majuscule: Ɛ, minuscule: ɛ) is a letter of the extended Latin alphabet, based on the lowercase of the Greek letter epsilon (ε). It was introduced in the 16th century by Gian Giorgio Trissino to represent the pronunc ...

, was an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaii ...

led to an increased need for labor. The majority of marriages between Chinese men and European women in Hawaii were between

men and

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

women. Portuguese and other European women married Chinese men. 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. A large amount of mingling took place between Chinese and European, Chinese men married Portuguese, Spanish, Hawaiian, Caucasian-Hawaiian, etc. Only one Chinese man was recorded marrying an American woman. Chinese men in Hawaii also married Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Japanese, Greek, and half-white women. There was a communal ban on intermarriages between the two groups for the first generation of migrants. In the middle of the 19th century, Hakka immigrants in America were excluded from membership in the Chinese organizations.

Religion

Prior to the arrival of

Christian missionaries A Christian mission is an organized effort to carry on evangelism, in the name of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries. Sometimes individuals are sent and ...

in Hawaii, the early Chinese settlers were adherents of

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...

, and

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...

. 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 Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

and

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

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.

List of notable Chinese people from Hawaiʻi

Chun Afong Chun Afong (; c. 1825 – September 25, 1906) was a Chinese businessman and philanthropist who settled in the Hawaiian Kingdom during the 19th century and built a business empire in Hawaii, Macau and Hong Kong. He immigrated to Hawaii from Guan ...

* Daniel K. Akaka *

Joseph Apukai Akina Joseph Apukai Akina (June 15, 1856 – March 16, 1920) was a lawyer, politician and minister of the Kingdom of Hawaii and later Territory of Hawaii. He served as a statesman during the reign of Queen Liliʻuokalani and later became the first Sp ...

Chang Apana Chang Apana (December 26, 1871 – December 8, 1933; ) was a Chinese-Hawaiian member of the Honolulu Police Department, first as an officer, then as a detective. He was acknowledged by Earl Derr Biggers as the inspiration for his fictional Chine ...

Brian Ching Brian Ching (born May 24, 1978) is an American former professional soccer player who played for twelve years in Major League Soccer and represented the U.S. national team for eight years. Ching's professional career began when he was the 16th ...

Madison Chock Madison La'akea Te-Lan Hall Chock (born July 2, 1992) is an American ice dancer. Together with her husband and skating partner Evan Bates, she is a 2022 Olympic gold medalist in the team event, a three-time World champion (2023, 2024 and 2025), ...

Norm Chow Norman Yew Heen Chow (born May 3, 1946) is an American football coach and former player. He was the head football coach at the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football, University of Hawaii at Manoa, a position he held from December 2011 until November ...

* William K.S. Chow *

Sam Choy Sam Choy Sr. is an American chef, restaurateur, and television personality known as "the godfather of poke" and a founding contributor of Pacific Rim cuisine. Biography Choy is the son of a Chinese father, Hung Sam Choy, and a German–Hawa ...

* Kam-Fong Chun *

Gordon Pai'ea Chung-Hoon Gordon Paiea Chung-Hoon (July 25, 1910 – July 24, 1979) was an admiral in the United States Navy, who served during World War II and was the first Asian American flag officer. He received the Navy Cross and Silver Star for conspicuous galla ...

Auliʻi Cravalho Chloe Auliʻi Cravalho (; born November 22, 2000) is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut as the voice of the title character in the Disney animated musical film '' Moana'' (2016) and reprised her role in the 2024 sequel. ...

Hiram L. Fong Hiram Leong Fong (born Yau Leong Fong; October 15, 1906 – August 18, 2004) was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician from Hawaii. Born to a Cantonese immigrant Sugar plantations in Hawaii, sugar plantation worker, Fong was one of the ...

Clayton Hee Clayton H. W. Hee is a former Democratic Party member of the Hawaii Senate who represented the 23rd District from 2004 to 2014 and 1984 to 1988. Hee served as chairman of the state senate's Judiciary and Labor Committee. Personal life and edu ...

Don Ho Donald Tai Loy Ho (; August 13, 1930 – April 14, 2007) was a Hawaiian traditional pop musician, singer, and entertainer. He is best known for the song "Tiny Bubbles" from the 1966 album of the same name. Early life, family and education Ho ...

* Hoku Ho *

Kelly Hu Kelly Ann Hu (born February 13, 1968) is an American actress. She starred as Dr. Rae Chang on the American television soap opera '' Sunset Beach'' and as Michelle Chan on the American television police drama series '' Nash Bridges''. She has st ...

Jason Scott Lee Jason Scott Lee (; born November 19, 1966) is an American actor and martial artist. He played Mowgli in Disney's 1994 live-action adaptation of ''The Jungle Book'' and Bruce Lee in the 1993 martial arts film '' Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story''. P ...

Richard Loo Richard Loo (October 1, 1903 – November 20, 1983) was an American film actor who was one of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1931 and 1982. Early lif ...

* Tai Sing Loo *

Agnes Lum Agnes Nalani Lum (; born May 21, 1956), or Lum-chan, is an American former model, singer, and actress who gained popularity in Japan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She began modeling while still in high school. She won the Miss Hawaii USA co ...

Carissa Moore Carissa Kainani Moore (born August 27, 1992) is an American surfer. She was the first-ever winner of the Olympic gold medal in women's shortboard surfing at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She is also a five-time world champion, winning in 2011, 2013, ...

William S. Richardson William Shaw Richardson (December 22, 1919 – June 21, 2010) was an American attorney, political figure, and chief justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court from 1966 to 1982. Prior to his service as the top jurist in Hawaii, Richardson was lie ...

Logan Tom Logan Maile Lei Tom (born May 25, 1981) is an American former indoor volleyball and beach volleyball player, and is the current head coach of the Israel women's national volleyball team. She is a four-time Olympian at the outside hitter positi ...

Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, (born May 15, 1972) also known as Kumu Hina, is a Native Hawaiian ''māhū'' – a traditional third gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female, as well as a modern transgender wo ...

Khalil Fong Khalil Fong Tai-Tung (; 14 July 1983 – 21 February 2025) was a Hong Kong singer-songwriter, musician and producer. Fong was notable for introducing a more sophisticated R&B and soul sound to the Chinese music market, drawing inspiration f ...

References

External links

Chinese of Hawaii
(1929 directory, 2 volumes, full text online)
Chinese Societies in Hawaii
(2008–2009, 86 society descriptions, full text online)
First Chinese Church of Hawaii

Miss Chinatown Hawaii
{{Overseas Chinese

Chinese-American history History of immigration to Hawaii

History

Religion

List of notable Chinese people from Hawaiʻi

See also

References

Further reading

External links