Hawaii is a very Filipino state.
Even when compared to places with high Filipino-American populations like New York or California, Hawaii blows it out of the water.
About a quarter of the state’s population is Filipino, making it the second largest ethnic group in the state.
As someone with quite a bit of Filipino family living in Hawaii, it was something I never explored further. I figured geography had something to do with it. If you’re in the Philippines headed to the U.S., Hawaii conveniently cuts that journey in half. I always figured the seafaring ways of our ancestors had something to do with it.
And there’s some truth to that. Filipinos joined journeys by Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, and other traders that ran between East Asia and Hawaii long before the U.S. occupied the Kingdom of Hawaii.
But in other places that’s happened, the Filipino population isn’t quite as large.
This also doesn’t explain why Hawaii’s Filipino population largely hails from one specific part of the Philippines- Ilocos. Other Filipino-American hubs tend to have a wider mix.
The historical reason goes back to the early 20th Century, sugar workers, and a labor movement you don’t hear about too often that totally changed the United States’ political environment.
I made a new video to dive into all this. Come see!
The more I started simultaneously diving into the histories of Hawaii and the Philippines— and especially the relationship each of these countries had with the United States, the more I started to see some interesting patterns emerge.
I can’t call them parallel paths, because in many ways their timelines run in the opposite direction of each other.
Hawaii was a unified kingdom until its monarchy was overthrown by the United States government, and remains the newest state.
Meanwhile the Philippines really didn’t have a strong, collective national identity up until it’s resistance to Spanish colonization which is also right around the time of U.S. occupation. However, they emerged as an independent nation that has a fairly strong national identity today.
So maybe these two island states in the Pacific are more like twin flames?
I don’t think there’s nearly enough familiarity around the history of these two places and how the United States played a role in shaping that.
For many Americans, Hawaii gets treated like a playground. It’s a picturesque vacation spot, and perhaps the first mental image that comes up for most people when they hear words like paradise, vacation, or getaway. This association unfortunately often obscures some of the way American businesses coaxed the government towards overthrowing Queen Lili’uokalani’s rule.
The Philippines, from an American vantage point, is a strategic military location. A site of many military bases, and a place where a lot of people’s grandparents were deployed. This close diplomatic relationship also obscures the rockier parts of the relationship between the two.
In the late 1800s, sugar companies discovered there is a lot of money to be made from Hawaiian agriculture. Their intensive practices clashed with traditional values. They also established militias to protect their interests and resist being controlled by the Hawaiian government. In 1893,. Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown and replaced with a businessman, Sanford Dole… you might recognize his name.
Meanwhile, a lot of people don’t realize how close the Philippines came to becoming a U.S. state. The Philippines' fight against Spain for its independence was in its eighth month in December of 1898. Spain’s forces were severely depleted, but managed to keep the fight going. Still, it was heavily going in the Philippines’ favor.
How Hawaii got so Filipino
There's a story about imperialism, sugar, and the other side of Pearl Harbor...
JUN 10
Hawaii is a very Filipino state.
Even when compared to places with high Filipino-American populations like New York or California, Hawaii blows it out of the water.
About a quarter of the state’s population is Filipino, making it the second largest ethnic group in the state.
As someone with quite a bit of Filipino family living in Hawaii, it was something I never explored further. I figured geography had something to do with it. If you’re in the Philippines headed to the U.S., Hawaii conveniently cuts that journey in half. I always figured the seafaring ways of our ancestors had something to do with it.
And there’s some truth to that. Filipinos joined journeys by Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, and other traders that ran between East Asia and Hawaii long before the U.S. occupied the Kingdom of Hawaii.
But in other places that’s happened, the Filipino population isn’t quite as large.
This also doesn’t explain why Hawaii’s Filipino population largely hails from one specific part of the Philippines- Ilocos. Other Filipino-American hubs tend to have a wider mix.
The historical reason goes back to the early 20th Century, sugar workers, and a labor movement you don’t hear about too often that totally changed the United States’ political environment.
I made a new video to dive into all this. Come see!
Islands and Kingdoms
The more I started simultaneously diving into the histories of Hawaii and the Philippines— and especially the relationship each of these countries had with the United States, the more I started to see some interesting patterns emerge.
I can’t call them parallel paths, because in many ways their timelines run in the opposite direction of each other.
Hawaii was a unified kingdom until its monarchy was overthrown by the United States government, and remains the newest state.
Meanwhile the Philippines really didn’t have a strong, collective national identity up until it’s resistance to Spanish colonization which is also right around the time of U.S. occupation. However, they emerged as an independent nation that has a fairly strong national identity today.
So maybe these two island states in the Pacific are more like twin flames?
I don’t think there’s nearly enough familiarity around the history of these two places and how the United States played a role in shaping that.
For many Americans, Hawaii gets treated like a playground. It’s a picturesque vacation spot, and perhaps the first mental image that comes up for most people when they hear words like paradise, vacation, or getaway. This association unfortunately often obscures some of the way American businesses coaxed the government towards overthrowing Queen Lili’uokalani’s rule.
The Philippines, from an American vantage point, is a strategic military location. A site of many military bases, and a place where a lot of people’s grandparents were deployed. This close diplomatic relationship also obscures the rockier parts of the relationship between the two.
In the late 1800s, sugar companies discovered there is a lot of money to be made from Hawaiian agriculture. Their intensive practices clashed with traditional values. They also established militias to protect their interests and resist being controlled by the Hawaiian government. In 1893,. Queen Lili’uokalani was overthrown and replaced with a businessman, Sanford Dole… you might recognize his name.
Meanwhile, a lot of people don’t realize how close the Philippines came to becoming a U.S. state. The Philippines' fight against Spain for its independence was in its eighth month in December of 1898. Spain’s forces were severely depleted, but managed to keep the fight going. Still, it was heavily going in the Philippines’ favor.
That’s when the U.S. showed up and struck a really strange deal. It manages to position itself as an ally to the Filipinos while conducting secret meetings with Spain. The Spanish decide they would rather lose to the Americans than the Filipinos. The U.S. and the Philippines defeat spain, but rather than securing Philippine independence, it instead simply swapped out colonizers.
In both instances, there’s an interference with each place’s sovereignty, but this was the birth of the most influential relationship each country would have.
During World War 2, both places were considered territories of the United States. And on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. At the same time, Japan also attacked bases in the Philippines.
In written drafts of FDR’s famous speech, the Philippines attack was supposed to be mentioned. Conspicuously, it shows up crossed out.
Reconciling the past and present always requires an honest embrace of history, which is oftentimes unflattering. However there is also the discovery that different groups of people all around the world are connected through a shared struggle for autonomy and better futures.