History of the Chinese in Hawaii

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A statue of the Chinese statesman Sun Yat-sen in Honolulu's Chinatown .

The history of the Chinese in Hawaii , officially part of the United States' territory since 1900 , goes back to the 18th century. From the Asian mainland, the Chinese came to Hawaii first as merchants and later in large numbers as agricultural contract workers , to indentured labor . While Chinese migrants in the other states of the United States were exposed to discrimination and racist rejection, which sometimes led to pogroms and displacement, the Chinese found comparatively favorable living conditions despite many disadvantages. At 4.7% of the total population, they are now one of the largest ethnic groups in the American state .

Time of the sandalwood trade

After James Cook landed in Kaua'i in 1778 and discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands", for Europe, western merchants began mining the native sandalwood in the 1790s and moving it to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong (Canton) to shipping. Business came to a standstill when there was no sandalwood left in the 1830s. Chinese sailors came to Hawaii in small numbers during the time of the sandalwood trade, and a few Chinese settled here. During this time the archipelago was given the name the Chinese used to call it: "Tan Heung Shan" (= land of the sandalwood mountains).

Beginning of the Chinese migration (1850-1870)

Chinese migrants did not come to Hawaii in large numbers until the second half of the 19th century after two opium wars , the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the long and bloody Taiping uprising tore the country economically and politically. At first, however, the Chinese came in small numbers; most of these early migrants were merchants and artisans from Guangdong Province. Some were farmers who started growing sugar cane , rice, and coffee in Hawaii . The majority of the Chinese, however, never came to Hawaii voluntarily, but were deported to Hawaii as coolies and cheap workers.

Since the 1820s, an increasing number of American missionaries and entrepreneurs came to Hawaii to convert the residents to Christianity or to operate plantations there. While the Chinese plantation owners dominated the rice economy, the American planters mostly concentrated on the cultivation of sugar cane and coffee, and later also of pineapples. The arrival of the Americans marked the beginning of a growing American influence, which would culminate in the annexation of the archipelago in 1898 .

Peak of the Chinese Migration (1870-1890)

The Europeans and Americans also brought epidemics such as cholera and the plague that drastically reduced the Hawaiian population. When Cook's arrival in 1788 there were around 225,000 Hawaiians living on the islands, the indigenous population in 1875 was only around 50,000. As there was not enough local labor available in Hawaii, the Chinese and American plantation operators began to bring contract workers from China ( English indentured laborer ) to the islands in the 1850s . The first contract workers in Hawaii were Hakka from what is now Fujian Province , who left China via the port city of Xiamen ; under the Qing Dynasty , Chinese could only leave their country illegally. Since the 1870s, when the number of contract workers required increased significantly, most of them came from Guangdong, from where many Chinese also headed for the American mainland. The reason for this increase was a treaty signed in 1875, in which Hawaii and the United States made each other preferred trading partners. While an average of barely 100 Chinese per year came to Hawaii from 1852 to 1875, that number rose to more than 2,000 between 1876 and 1899. In total, more than 50,000 Chinese came in the second half of the 19th century, although not all of them settled permanently; the employment contracts had terms of between three and five years. Although most of the contract workers tried to terminate their employment as soon as possible and to leave the plantations, tens of thousands stayed in the country and took on wage labor or started their own businesses as farmers or business people.

As in mainland America, most Chinese immigrants in Hawaii were men. This is especially true for contract workers. However, the Chinese merchants and professionals often took their wives and children with them to Hawaii: far more often than such merchants and specialists took their families to mainland America. In Hawaii, too, the Chinese encountered prejudice and discrimination, but evictions and physical attacks never occurred. Many of the contract workers married Hawaiian women, others established lucrative livelihoods in a short time and then had their wives and children from China follow them. The social integration of the Chinese immigrants progressed steadily; by the 1930s, Hawaii had Chinese teachers, journalists, bankers, translators, priests, doctors, and managers.

Recent history

The Chinese in Hawaii were largely, but not entirely, spared the anti-Chinese hysteria that was spreading on the American mainland. In 1883 the "Workingmen's Union" was founded in Hawaii, a union whose program largely corresponded to that of the California politician Dennis Kearney , whose anti-Chinese propaganda had a great influence on the " Chinese Exclusion Act " passed by the US Congress in 1882 . After the US annexed Hawaii during the Spanish-American War on July 7, 1898, Chinese workers were no longer allowed to enter, and the regulation of the Chinese Exclusion Act , which completely prohibited the influx of Chinese, was also applied to Hawaii. It was only when new immigration laws were passed in the 1950s and 1960s that Chinese people were able to immigrate back to Hawaii. During a plague epidemic 1899-1900 the local authorities burned a number of buildings in the Chinatown of Honolulu down, ostensibly to counteract the disease from spreading. Many Chinese Hawaiians considered the measure unnecessary and attributed it to anti-Chinese prejudices.

religion

While the early Chinese settlers in Hawaii remained true to their traditional Buddhist , Daoist, or Confucian beliefs, today the vast majority of Chinese Hawaiians are affiliated with Protestant or Catholic Christianity . Nevertheless, around 100 temples have survived to the present day, and a minority of religious traditionalists go on an annual pilgrimage to worship their ancestors.

Current population statistics

According to the latest US census from 2000, Hawaii had 56,600 people of Chinese descent that year, 4.7% of the total population. Most of the Chinese live in Honolulu County ; However, the two islands of neighboring Kauai County to the west have the highest Chinese population .

county Total population Chinese ethnic population in percent
Hawaii County 148,677 1,603 1.1%
Maui County 128.094 1,197 0.9%
Kalawao County 147 - -
Honolulu County 876.156 53,322 6.1%
Kauai County 58,463 11,195 19.1%

swell

  1. ^ Brownstone, p. 95
  2. ^ Brownstone, pp. 95f
  3. ^ Sebastian Conrad: Globalization and Nation in the German Empire. CH Beck, 2010, p. 179 f.
  4. ^ Brownstone, p. 96
  5. ^ Brownstone, pp. 96-99
  6. ^ Brownstone, pp. 99-101
  7. ^ Brownstone, p. 101
  8. ↑ US Census Bureau. State & County QuickFacts [1]

See also

literature

  • David M. Brownstone: The Chinese-American Heritage. Facts On File, New York NY et al. 1988, ISBN 0-8160-1627-5 (English).

Web links

Commons : Chinese People in Hawaii  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files