Chinese find an easy fit in Hawai'i

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i may be oversold as a "melting pot" of diverse groups, but if anyone comes close to blending into the scenery here, it's the Chinese.

Close to 1,000 people attending this week's Organization of Chinese Americans convention learned that much about the Island history of Chinese immigrants at yesterday's opening session, "Mixed Plate with a Side of Spam Musubi."

The convention at the Sheraton Waikiki continues today with a job fair, summit meeting on the Asian-American experience and other activities, and concludes tomorrow with a national board meeting. But for openers, the participants, many of whom are used to being in the small ethnic minority, sat down to learn about the convention's host city, where so many faces look like their own.

Bryan Man, ethnic studies professor at Chaminade University, was the panelist representing the shrinking population of full-blooded Chinese in Hawai'i ("I'm fourth-generation Chinese, and my generation is probably the last with full Chinese," he said).

Around him sat three whose Chinese forebears had intermarried with Hawaiians, Filipinos and other groups: Haunani Apoliona and Clyde Namu'o of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who spoke about the indigenous culture; and Domingo Los Banos, who described the influence of immigrant plantation laborers.

Chinese were the first to follow the Westerners into the Islands, Man said, citing records of Chinese in Hawai'i as early as 1789. The large-scale immigration of Chinese began in 1852; at its peak, Chinese represented 23 percent of the population here.

Today, that proportion has dwindled to 5 percent, partly because other groups arrived in greater numbers, Man said. The Japanese, the largest group, brought "picture brides" with whom to parent the next generation, while the Chinese intermarried with the Hawaiians, he said, yielding the Chinese-Hawaiian mix as the state's most common ethnic combination.

The population continues to grow today, he said, although most of the roughly 500 Chinese immigrants who arrive annually come from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The Chinese Community Action Coalition is an organization that helps newer arrivals adjust by learning English and preparing for naturalization; immigration has become a more complex obstacle course in the current culture of tight international security, Man said.

For earlier generations, Los Banos said, life in a new home became easier after plantation laborers began working and living more cooperatively, forging the blended culture of Hawai'i.

It's not a wholly homogenized blend, however.

"People think of Hawai'i as a melting pot," Namu'o said. "That's a little bit of a misnomer. I'm not so sure we're melting together."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.