California top state for Pacific Islanders
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
June Starr still begins and ends her conversations with "aloha" and "mahalo" and dabbles in the pidgin English she spoke growing up.
She still gets pangs of homesickness and cravings for laulau. She likes it when the kids in her neighborhood call her "auntie." She enjoys stringing flowers for friends who appreciate the exotic scent of a lei. And as a 1956 Farrington High School grad, she still keeps up with alumni activities.
Starr left Hawai'i 35 years ago so her husband could go away to school and land a job in mainframe computer work. They planted roots in Northridge, Calif., and came back to the Islands only to visit.
Today, Starr is one of 116,961 Pacific Islanders in California, a state home to 29 percent of the country's Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
California now has more people who identify themselves solely as Pacific Islanders than Hawai'i does, new numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate. In Hawai'i, 113,539 people identified themselves as solely a member of that group.
"You still get the feeling there's nothing like the Islands," said Starr, who organizes vendors for an annual Hawaiian festival in Northridge. "I always hoped that one time I'd go back to the Islands."
The latest numbers reflect Hawaiians who have settled into neighborhoods with a distinct cultural flavor, with the same characteristics as enclaves of America's earlier generations of immigrants. These are families rediscovering traditions and passing on cultural mores while keeping ties to the Islands.
They represent the latest wave of people who have migrated to California, just as thousands did during the Gold Rush, after World War II, and in recent years for educational and economic opportunities. This is the first census to identify them individually, because, for the first time, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — who include Chamorros, Fijians, Micronesians, Samoans, Tahitians and Tongans — have been listed as a category separate from Asians.
"It's a surprise to me that we have a larger population than the Islands," said Susie Suafa'i, who lives in Oakland, Calif., and is part of the Census Race Ethnic Advisory Committee. "It makes sense when you look at there being larger opportunities here."
Patrick Makuakane, who identified his race on his census form as "Native Hawaiian" and "Caucasian," said he is glad this census fully recognizes his heritage. He left Hawai'i in the 1980s to attend San Francisco State University. He liked it so much, he stayed. But he made an effort to keep ties to the Islands. He became director of Na Lei Hulu I Ka W«kiu, a hula halau that performs in California and Hawai'i.
"I moved here 16 years ago, and all (of a) sudden it's like I tapped into this Polynesian underground," he said. "Hawai'i still seems like the mother ship of Polynesia. You only recognize each other when you go to a function that caters to Hawaiians. It's not like I can walk down the street and see a Pacific Islander. It doesn't happen like that."
The way it happens for Sherrie Suehiro is that people drive for miles to eat at her restaurant in Monterey Park, Calif.
Suehiro, whose family moved to California from Hawai'i, said customers come every week for her " 'ono beef stew" special or laulau dishes at Aloha Cafe Hawaiian Restaurant, where the head chef is from Maui. Suehiro, the 46-year-old manager, was born on the Big Island. She opened the restaurant so she wouldn't have to travel so far to find familiar food.
"It is so expensive back home — and no jobs," she said. "That's why I have a lot of relatives who are moving to Las Vegas as well."
Just as Las Vegas has an emerging set of hotels, restaurants and real estate agents catering to Hawaiians, California is sprouting more and more pockets of Hawaiian communities.
"We all miss home," said Barbara Analani Imbach, 54, who was born in Hilo, raised on O'ahu and now lives in Woodland Hills, Calif., where she runs a craft company called Menehune Magic. "We're always homesick. A lot of us would love to move back home, but we can't afford to."
Imbach, a secretary at a California branch of Kaiser Permanente, said she slips into pidgin only at home, and she has to remember which of her friends know her only as Barbara or by her Hawaiian name, Analani. Her husband, a Mainlander, can tell which of her friends is on the phone by the inflection of her voice.
Imbach stays in touch with her culture through Polynesian craft fairs and as president of San Fernando Valley's 'Ohana Kakou social club. Her club makes malassadas from scratch for festivals and promotes education with art and language classes. Imbach is taking Hawaiian language lessons and just learned to play the 'ukulele.
Being away from home has kept her more involved in cultural activities than she might have been otherwise.
The same is true for Marian and Bobby Chun in North Hollywood, Calif.
Marian was planning to go to nursing school when she left Hawai'i for California in 1949.
Instead, she met and married Bobby, another Hawai'i transplant, and together they raised a family on the Mainland. He became an electrical engineer. She worked in the apparel department of a hospital.
As a retiree, Bobby organizes outings for his area's Aloha Golf Club. Everyone calls him "Uncle Bobby" and lets him know about other Hawaiian events going on.
More than half a century since they moved, Marian still slips into calling Hawai'i home. Then she slips back to her life in North Hollywood.
"You establish yourself here, and the expense is not as bad as back home," she said. "So our home is here right now."
The Chuns are part of the demographic that gives "Aloha Joe" Seiter an audience.
As a Hawaiian radio show host in Lakewood, Calif., he finds that Hawai'i transplants and former honeymooners are nostalgic for the kind of music he plays on Internet, satellite and cable broadcasts.
"This is where the business is for me," said "Aloha Joe," whose name is a registered trademark but whose heritage is haole. He married a woman from Hilo but found a Hawaiian niche in the Golden State. "If I were there (in Hawai'i), I'd probably be just another KCCN in town. I kind of pick up the void for everybody else in the country, I guess. I kind of make them feel like they're in Hawai'i, make them feel like they're on vacation."
In Orange County, Kealohaonalani Figueroa, a sheriff's deputy, spreads the aloha spirit even when she's on duty. She is often sent into Samoan neighborhoods, where she understands the culture.
Figueroa, who grew up on O'ahu, moved to California 20 years ago to take a college scholarship and enter law enforcement, making more than she could here.
"It's like I told myself I wanted to be somebody," she said. "I didn't feel like I could do that back home. I thought I had better opportunity here."
Still, she runs a side business, Ohana Ventures, that specializes in Hawaiian products, and she plans to retire in Hawai'i.
In Berkeley, Calif., Paul Kealoha Blake tries to fill a political void as a part of the Hawaiian Nation Information Group of Northern California, which organizes speaking tours for Hawaiian leaders to educate California Hawaiians about initiatives such as the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
"There's a tendency, as there is with any immigrant group, to build a community based on art, culture and politics," Blake said. "The Hawaiians up here want to stay connected. I think there's a sense that when we leave, we've given up what was there. That's not true."
