First stage: Hawaiian migration (18th-19th centuries)

Migration from Oceania to the United States began in the last decade of the 18th century, but the first migrants to arrive in the country were Native Hawaiians. People from other Oceanian backgrounds (except Australians and Māori) did not migrate to the United States until the late 19th century. The first Native Hawaiians to live in the present-day US were fur traders. They were hired by British fur traders in Hawaii and taken to the Northwestern US, from where trade networks developed with Honolulu. However, they charged less than Americans for doing the same jobs and returned to Hawaii when their contracts ended. The first Native Hawaiians to live permanently in the US settled in the Astoria colony (in present-day Oregon) in 1811, having been brought there by its founder, fur merchant John Jacob Astor. Astor created the Pacific Fur Company in the colony and used the Native Hawaiians to build the city's infrastructure and houses and to develop the primary sector (agriculture, hunting and fishing). The labor employment of the Native Hawaiians was done to make them serve the company (although later, most of them worked for North West Company when this company absorbed the Pacific Fur Company in 1813).

After 1813, Native Hawaiians continued to migrate to the Pacific Northwest. They migrated to work in companies such as the Hudson's Bay Company (which absorbed the North West Company in 1821) and the Columbia Fishing and Trading Company, as well as in Christian missions.^[4] Since 1819, some groups of Polynesian Protestant students immigrated to the United States to study theology.^[5] Since the 1830s, another group of Native Hawaiians arrived on California's shores,^[5][4] where they were traders and formed communities. So, they made up 10% of the population of Yerba Buena, now San Francisco, in 1847. During the California gold rush, many other Native Hawaiians migrated to California to work as miners.^[4]

In 1889, the first Polynesian Mormon colony was founded in Utah and consisted of Native Hawaiians, Tahitians, Samoans, and Māori.^[5] Also in the late 19th century, small groups of Pacific Islanders, usually sailors, moved to the western shores, mainly on San Francisco.^[6] Later, the US occupied Hawaii in 1896, Guam in 1898, and American Samoa in 1900.^[7] This fact diversified Oceanian emigration in the US.

Second stage (20th-21st centuries)

However, the first record of non-Hawaiian Pacific Islanders in the US is from 1910,^[4] with the first Guamanians living in the US. In the following decades small groups of people from islands such as Hawaii, Guam,^[6] Tonga, or American Samoa emigrated to the US. Many of them were Mormons (including most of Tongans and American Samoans),^[8][9] who emigrated to help build Mormon churches,^[8] or to seek an education, either in Laie^[9] or Salt Lake City.^[10] However, the emigration of Pacific Islanders to the US was small until the end of World War II,^[4] when many American Samoans,^[11] Guamanians (who got the American citizenship in 1929),^[9] and Tongans emigrated to the US. Most of them were in the military or married with military people,^[6] but some Pacific Islanders, particularly Tongans, looked for a job in several religious and cultural centers. Since then the emigration increased and diversified every decade, with a majority emigrating to the Western urban areas and Hawaii.^[4]

This increase and diversification in the Oceanian emigration was especially true in the 1950s. In 1950, the population of Guam gained full American citizenship.^[8] In 1952, the natives of American Samoa become American nationals, although not American citizens, through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.^[12] Shortly thereafter, the first major waves of migration from American Samoa^[13][11] and Guam^[14] emerged, while other groups of places such as French Polynesia, Palau, or Fiji began to emigrate. Over 5,100 Pacific Islanders emigrated to the United States in the 1950s, mostly from American Samoa, Guam, and Tonga.^[15] The first of them were Samoan military personnel, who had worked at the American bases of Pago Pago but moved to the Honolulu's American bases when American Samoa began to be administered by the US Department of the Interior, as well as their relatives.^[16][8] Most of the new Pacific Islander immigrants were Mormons^[15] and many islanders from the region emigrated to the US seeking economic opportunities.

In 1959, Hawaii became a state^[17] and its natives got US citizenship. This made more than 630,000 people Americans;^[18] many of them were Pacific Islanders, both Native Hawaiians and people of other Oceanian origins. Thus, the Hawaiian migration to the continental US began to increase. In the 1960s, many more Pacific Islanders emigrated to the US, mainly due to increased migration from Guam,^[19] Fiji, Tonga,^[10][20] and Samoa archipelago (both independent and American Samoa^[9]).^[21] The Pacific Islanders migrated by diverse reasons: Many Guamanians fled the Korean War and Typhoon Karen,^[19] and the Fijian population living in the US skyrocketed from a few dozen people in the 1950s to more than 400 people. The Pacific Islander migration increased especially since 1965,^[10][9][20] when the United States government facilitated the non-European migration to the US.^[10] Many of them were recruited to pick fruit in California.^[19]

During the 1970s, over nine thousand Pacific Islanders migrated to the US, mostly from Samoa^[13] (both Western and American^[22]), Guam, Tonga, and Fiji, but also from other islands such as Federated States of Micronesia or Palau. Many of these people emigrated to the US to study at its universities.^[23] Moreover, in the 1980s, migration from the Pacific Islands to the United States became more diversified when this country acquired the Northern Marianas Islands in 1986^[24] and signed an agreement with TTPI (FSM, Palau and the Marshall Islands) called the Compact of Free Association. The Compact of Free Association allows the inhabitants from TTPI to travel and work in the US without visas.^{[note 1]} On the other hand, the Tyson Foods company, which employed a significant part of the population of the Marshall Islands, relocated many of its Marshellese employees in Springdale, Arkansas, where the company is based.^[25] However, most of Pacific Islanders continued to migrate to western urban areas and Hawaii.^[4] More of five thousand Pacific Islanders migrated to the US in the 1990s, settling mostly in western cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, or Salt Lake City.^[4] In the 2000 US census, almost all the countries of Oceania were mentioned, although only the ethnic groups mentioned in the article consisted of thousands of people.^[26] In the 2000s and 2010s, several thousands more Pacific Islanders emigrated to the US.

Demography

In the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the term "Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander" refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Marshalls or other Pacific Islands. Most Pacific Islander Americans are of Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Chamorro origin.

The fact that Hawaii is a US state (meaning that almost the entire native Hawaiian population lives in the US), as well as the migration and high birth rate of the Pacific Islanders have favored the permanence and increase of this population in the US (especially in the number of people who are of partial Pacific Islander descent). In the 2000 census, over 800,000 people claimed to be of Pacific Islander descent and in the 2010 census 1,225,195 Americans claimed "'Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander'" as their race alone or in combination. Most of them live in urban areas of Hawaii and California, but they also have sizeable populations in Washington, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and New York. On the other hand, Pacific Islander Americans represent the majority (or are the main ethnic group) in American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, from where many of them are natives.

Areas of origin

Origins (alone or in any combination)

More information Ancestry, Flag ...

Pacific Islander Americans in the 2020^[34] United States censuses

Ancestry	Flag	2020
		Numbers	%
Native Hawaiian		680,442
Samoan		296,997
"Pacific Islander" (not specified)		261,391
Chamorro		147,947 (Guamanian or Chamorro: 143,947 Saipanese: 1,143 Northern Mariana Islander: 553)
Tongan		78,871
Fijian		54,383 ("Fijians": 54,006 Rotumans: 377)
Marshallese		52,624
"Micronesian" (not specified)		45,364
Micronesian (FSM)		21,596 (Chuukese: 12,464 Pohnpeian: 4,918 Kosraean: 2,148 Yapese: 2,066)
Palauan		12,202
Polynesians with New Zealand citizenship (Māori, Tokelauans, Niueans, Cook Islanders)		9,985 (Māori: 7,664 Tokelauans: 1,207 Niueans: 569 Cook Islanders: 545)
"Polynesian" (not specified)		9,092
French Polynesian		8,689 ("Tahitian": 7,935 "French Polynesian": 754)
Papua New Guinean		1,453
"Melanesian" (not especified)		937
I-Kiribati		831
Tuvaluan		399
New Caledonian (Fr)		265
Ni-Vanuatu		262
Salomonese		220
Total Pacific Islander American population		1,586,463	100.0%

Close

Location