Aloha Compadre: Latinxs in Hawai'i

By Rudy P. Guevarra

Aloha Compadre: Latinxs in Hawaiʻi is the first book to examine the collective history and contemporary experiences of the Latinx population of Hawaiʻi. This study reveals that contrary to popular discourse, Latinx migration to Hawaiʻi is not a recent event. In the national memory of the United States, for example, the Latinx population of Hawaiʻi is often portrayed as recent arrivals and not as long-term historical communities with a presence that precedes the formation of statehood itself. Historically speaking, Latinxs have been voyaging to the Hawaiian Islands for over one hundred and ninety years. From the early 1830s to the present, they continue to help shape Hawaiʻi’s history, yet their contributions are often overlooked. Latinxs have been a part of the cultural landscape of Hawaiʻi prior to annexation, territorial status, and statehood in 1959. Aloha Compadre also explores the expanding boundaries of Latinx migration beyond the western hemisphere and into Oceania.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9780813572710

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Cover Page for Aloha Compadre

Aloha Compadre

Latinidad

Transnational Cultures in the United States

This series publishes books that deepen and expand our understanding of Latina/o populations, especially in the context of their transnational relationships within the Americas. Focusing on borders and boundary-crossings, broadly conceived, the series is committed to publishing scholarship in history, film and media, literary and cultural studies, public policy, economics, sociology, and anthropology. Inspired by interdisciplinary approaches, methods, and theories developed out of the study of transborder lives, cultures, and experiences, titles enrich our understanding of transnational dynamics.

Matt Garcia, Series Editor, Professor of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies, and History, Dartmouth College

For a list of titles in the series, see the last page of the book.

Aloha Compadre

Latinxs in Hawaiʻi

Rudy P. Guevarra Jr.

Rutgers University Press

New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey

London and Oxford

Rutgers University Press is a department of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, one of the leading public research universities in the nation. By publishing worldwide, it furthers the University’s mission of dedication to excellence in teaching, scholarship, research, and clinical care.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Guevarra, Rudy P., Jr., author.

Title: Aloha compadre : Latinxs in Hawaiʻi / Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr.

Other titles: Latinxs in Hawaiʻi

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2023] | Series: Latinidad : transnational cultures in the United States | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022050893 | ISBN 9780813565651 (paperback) | ISBN 9780813565668 (cloth) | ISBN 9780813565675 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813572710 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Hispanic Americans—Hawaii—History. | Latin Americans—Hawaii—History. | Immigrants—Hawaii—History. | Hawaii—Race relations—History. | Hawaii—Ethnic relations—History.

Classification: LCC DU624.7.S75 G84 2023 | DDC 305.868/0730969—dc23/eng/20221024

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022050893.

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2023 by Rudy P. Guevarra Jr.

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

rutgersuniversitypress.org

In loving memory of my parents

Angela Magaña Guevarra (1954–2014)

and

Rudy Poscablo Guevarra (1950–2015)

Thank you for the many memories and life lessons and, most of all, your love.

Ramón Chunky Sánchez (1951–2016)

My mentor, friend, and fellow Chicano activist

Dawn Mabalon (1972–2018)

My friend, Filipina American historian, and fellow scholar activist

G. Reginald Daniel (1949–2022)

My friend, mentor, and pioneer in critical mixed race studies

And to the rest of my family and friends who have transitioned.

Rest in Love, Light, and Power.

Contents

Preface

Note on Terminology and Accessibility

Introduction: The Deportation of Andres Magaña Ortiz

1 Vaqueros and Paniolos

2 Boricua Hawaiiana

3 Working Maui Pine

4 Wetbacks in Racial Paradise?

5 Mixed Race Identity, Localized Latinxs, and a Pacific Latinidad

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Preface

Before I share the story of the Latinx population of Hawaiʻi, I wanted to provide some context of my own personal history and ties to this project as well as my positionality in the writing of this book. I was born and raised in San Diego, California, where I grew up in communities that included not just Mexicans, Chicanxs, and Filipinxs but also other Latinxs, Chamorros, Native Hawaiians, locals from Hawaiʻi, Sāmoans, Tongans, Blacks, Asians, those who identified as mixed race, and some whites. These were all the friends I grew up with. We often went to one another’s houses, eating one another’s food and in some instances, being informally adopted into one another’s families. My parents also had longtime family friends who were Chamorro. Growing up in a multiracial space, I had been exposed to Pacific Islander cultures since I was in elementary school. It was not uncommon for me to call some of my Pacific Islander friends cousins and all our elders aunties and uncles. It was a similar practice in Filipinx and Mexican cultures.

By my high school years, I had also become familiar with these same Pacific Islander cultures and had, to some extent, an elementary understanding of certain words and phrases in Hawaiian, Hawaiian Pidgin English, and Sāmoan. We were also exposed to one another’s cultures through our food. My Filipinx, Chamorro, Sāmoan, and Hawaiian friends came over to our house often because they agreed my mom made the best Mexican food they had ever had, and they enjoyed every burrito or taco she made for them. I often ventured to my cousin’s family store in National City off Euclid Avenue to indulge in Sāmoan food—in particular, pani popo (coconut rolls baked and drenched in coconut milk). I also fondly recall attending Hawaiian family get-togethers and larger social events, such as the Hui O Hawaiʻi of San Diego, where the protocol of oli (chant) to bless a meal and the gathering of community were common. By the early 1990s, my friends and I were attending both the annual Chicano Park Day festival and the San Diego Pacific Islander festival, which also had a noticeable Filipinx and Mexican presence because our communities were mixed. These relationships and experiences were further reinforced over the years during my senior year as an undergraduate, when I attended a summer research opportunity program at the University of Utah, where I met some friends from Hawaiʻi, Kuulei and Kanoe, who welcomed me as a hānai member of the Kaluhiokalani ʻohana (family), as well as in graduate school with my chosen family from Hawaiʻi who also attended University of California, Santa Barbara.¹ They were a part of my larger community of hānai and chosen family and friends in Hawaiʻi, many who are Native Hawaiian and non-Native locals. They oftentimes responded to my return to the islands every year by saying Welcome home and when I left with the words a hui hou (until we meet again).

Geographically, growing up in San Diego also gave me a certain perspective that tied me and my Pacific Islander and Mexican families together, which was the ocean—in particular, Oceania (the Pacific).² I have lived close to the ocean most of my life, so I have spent a lot of time in the water body boarding, body surfing, and swimming, among other activities. I was truly happy being submerged in the water or riding a wave; I felt safe and at ease. For me, the ocean was also an extension of the Indigenous Kumeyaay lands we inhabited. I would like to think of this connection to the ocean as part of my own ancestral connections as a self-identified Mexipino whose Filipino ancestors on my paternal side are descended from Pangasinan Ilokanos, Caviteños, and Baja, California, and whose Mexican ancestors on my maternal side are descended from the P’urhépecha people of Michoacán. These are water peoples as well, and I am linked to both ancestral oceans and lakes. It is the Pacific Ocean, however, that always calls me home.

When I was working on my dissertation (which became my first book, Becoming Mexipino), I began visiting Hawaiʻi back in 2001, looking at a totally different topic. I was, however, fascinated when I ventured around the island of Oʻahu, visiting restaurants, shopping, or spending time at one of the many beaches on the island with my hānai and chosen family and friends. This fascination was over how frequently I heard Spanish being spoken around me. As I continued to travel back and forth between the continent and Hawaiʻi over the years, I noticed more and more Spanish being spoken and saw more Mexicans and other Latinxs around. We would give one another the nod when making eye contact, and I soon found myself in conversations with those I encountered. I wanted to understand the history and experiences of those with whom I share a cultural background in Hawaiʻi. One conversation that stood out to me was when I was at the local supermarket Don Quijote (then known as Daiei) in the town of Waipahu and came across a group of Mexican farmworkers. I started a conversation with them, and they told me they were from Zacatecas, Michoacán, and Jalisco, which told me they were Indigenous people from México and Mexicans of Indigenous descent.³ I asked them what they were doing in Hawaiʻi, and one of them mentioned they were hired to pick tomatoes. I wasn’t aware at the time that Hawaiʻi had a growing local vegetable industry, but to my surprise, the next day while driving down the H1, I saw a truck go by with a bed load of tomatoes. Other locals I encountered and befriended would also share with me their Latinx ancestry when they found out I was Mexican and Filipino. Those moments were to find a connection with one another but also revealed to me just how many people in Hawaiʻi who I met casually claimed their Mexican, Puerto Rican, or other ethnic Latinx background.

I also fondly remember my first visit to the island of Oʻahu in 2001 and spending time in Lāiʻe on the North Shore with my uncle, Norman Coach K Kaluhiokalani. We spent the afternoon together driving around the island and talking story (conversing). During our conversations, he shared the history of the Hawaiian paniolo (cowboy) and the influence the Mexican vaqueros had on them. I had no idea about that history, and it compelled me to learn more. Those moments made me realize that there was a story to tell, and since I had not seen anything that was written at the time, I knew what my next book project would be. As I continued to finish my dissertation and revise it into my first book, I was already quietly gathering sources and interviews when I could every year I came back to Hawaiʻi.

This painstaking process would take twenty years to complete (and eleven years during that time to write it). My interest in why Latinxs and Chicanxs were leaving their homes in the United States (particularly from the Pacific West Coast and Southwest), Latin America, and the Spanish Caribbean to come to Hawaiʻi, a faraway location, began my quest to answer these questions. What were they seeking across the Pacific that would make them leave their families and begin a new life? How was this experience different from migrating to the continental United States? How did they find and create community in the diaspora? How were they received by Native Hawaiians and other non-Native locals on the islands? Did they frequently intermarry with one another? How were their identities and those of their children (for those who had them) shaped in a Pacific Island context that had a very different multicultural dynamic than what they experienced at home or in the continental United States? These questions drove me to tell this story and shed some light on what it means to be Latinx in Hawaiʻi and, more so, within a larger oceanic migration that also includes Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia. These migrations across the vast ocean astounded me. The community narratives I gathered over the years provided some insights and answers to these questions. I was also left with more questions than answers, but I found joy in knowing I would continue to explore, learn, and grow from these experiences.

During the course of this project, I collected more than eighty oral histories. A few of these interviews were also conducted by two of my peers back in Hawaiʻi during the times I could not physically be there to interview them (pre-Zoom years). At first, some of my interviewees were reluctant to speak, possibly because of their citizenship status or because they were not completely comfortable speaking to me because they did not know me. Fortunately, the vast majority of my interviewees were all gathered through word of mouth by friends, colleagues, and other interviewees who supported this project. Through them I was able to earn their confianza (trust) and have meaningful informal conversations about their lives and what it means to be Latinx in Hawaiʻi as locals and for others who migrated to the islands for a variety of reasons. Some of these oral histories were also located in the archives in Hawaiʻi, which provided additional historical context for this story.

The vast majority of my interviewees chose the option to use their real names, while a few chose to use pseudonyms. For those whose citizenship status was not known (and I did not ask as part of protecting their privacy), either I have excluded their interviews or, in the event they were included, I used pseudonyms and other precautionary measures to protect their identities. Other interviews were not included because I was not able to reestablish my connection with them due to outdated contact information.⁴ Interviewees were all over the age of eighteen and included a diversity of Latinx cultural backgrounds, occupations, and time lived on the island, as well as those who were born and raised in Hawaiʻi across multiple generations.

These informal conversations were done in the talk story form that is common in Hawaiʻi. Similar to both pláticas (Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean) and talanoa (Sāmoa, Tonga, and Fiji), this informal but richly layered method is based on storytelling and reciprocal dialogue that is intimate, personal, and lively. Our cultures are similar in that storytelling enables us to establish connections with one another in meaningful ways. Talk story is often done over food and drink, so my interviewees and I sat and shared our stories with one another, learning about one another while they opened up about their lives and the stories they wanted to share with me. I met a lot of kind and generous people who not only trusted me enough to share their stories with me but also invited me into their homes for meals and for kinship.⁵ These conversations were filled with laughter, tears, disappointment, and hope. It is this same hope for a better life for themselves and their loved ones that has brought Latinxs to Hawaiʻi for over 190 years. Their stories matter. And since they trusted me to retell these stories, I know that I am writing not only for an academic audience but also for a much larger one that includes those who shared their stories with me and the communities we are a part of. This collective narrative is for them and all those who wish to learn more about the Latinx experience in Hawaiʻi.

Note on Terminology and Accessibility

When using non-English words, I have also chosen to use specific methods. For example, I follow Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura’s use of not italicizing Hawaiian words, since ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) is not a foreign language in Hawaiʻi. Similarly, for those who are native Spanish speakers or fluent in Spanish, I chose not to italicize the words too so that Spanish could be seen as a language that is not foreign to all readers. Italics are kept in citations or when the original source uses them to quote them accurately. This also applies to sources that did (or do) not use the diacritical marks Kahakō and ʻOkina when spelling Hawaiʻi or other words in Hawaiian.¹

I use the terms Kanaka Maoli (and Kānaka Maoli in plural form), Kanaka ʻŌiwi, Native Hawaiian, and Hawaiian interchangeably to refer to the Indigenous people of Hawaiʻi. I use the term local to describe those who are born and raised in Hawaiʻi and share a multigenerational plantation history. At times I will include both groups in specific contexts when I am speaking about their interactions with the Latinx community. At other times I will use the term residents of Hawaiʻi to include Native Hawaiians, locals, haoles (whites), military personnel, and transplants from the continental United States. When necessary and depending on the context, I will refer specifically to each of these groups.² I also use the terms migrant and immigrant interchangeably while also being mindful of their specific usage as it deals with temporary movement (migrant) and permanent residency (immigrant).

I also choose to use the term Latinx as an umbrella/pan-ethnic term to describe the various racial and ethnic groups that are from the United States, Latin America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. As author and journalist Ed Morales notes, the term Latinx can be seen as a site of contestation given its usage by Latinxs to self-designate and redefine U.S. social categories.³ This term, however, is also contested by others or rejected for various reasons. These include, for example, its use of the x, its origins as Latin (an assigned social category), that it is a term only academics use, or that it will not remain a part of the lexicon.⁴ My purpose for choosing Latinx is to use it as a descriptive term that encompasses our collective experiences. This includes those who are gender nonbinary. I borrow from writer Paola Ramos and her use of the term Latinx: That ‘x’ is simply an invitation for every one of those people that can’t fit into one identity, for people that want to challenge the norms, or for those that simply want to reimagine themselves. For Ramos, it’s about claiming our collective belonging to this country.⁵ I also use this term intentionally to be inclusive of those who claim Indigenous, African, Asian, and/or Pacific Islander ancestries. When I am speaking about specific racialized ethnic groups, I will use those terms (e.g., Mexican, Cuban, Salvadoran). I am also aware that the use of Chicanx alongside Chicano or Chicana/o has similar critiques but specific to its use as a sociopolitical term born out of the Chicana/o movement. I acknowledge and identify with its origins, but I have also chosen to use the x in much the same way as in Latinx, which is intended to be inclusive of everyone in the Latinx and Chicanx communities of Hawaiʻi. It was important for me to honor how my interviewees self-identified, so I used their terms of choice. I also utilize these terms interchangeably, depending on historical or situational contexts.

Accessibility also matters. I was concerned with making my language accessible in this book and relatable to my interviewees just as much as an academic audience. When writing about specific racialized ethnic groups or individuals, I used the terms they identified with. I only use Latinx when I’m writing from my perspective and analysis about the population as a collective. The purpose of writing something like this is to make it accessible beyond academia. I try to remain mindful of including the scholarship, theories, and ways of framing ideas that resonate with scholars and students, while at the same time I’ve always written from the position of Can my parents or interviewees read this and understand what I am saying? From my perspective, what is the point of writing something if it is not accessible to our own communities, especially if these are their stories?

My study is a combination of archival sources, ethnographies, participant observation at various events and social gatherings, and as previously discussed, oral interviews. These sources reveal the rich, complex experiences of the Latinx communities and how their everyday lives were shaped by their interactions and relationships with other residents of Hawaiʻi and the social, economic, and political forces that led to their migrations and residency abroad. The archival sources also shed light on how individuals, politicians, employers, and local organizations saw themselves and one another within the context of specific historical and recent moments. I also understand that oral histories are the stories that people share with one another and how they remember those moments as focal points within the wider lens of history. As other historians have skillfully done, I also provide both the historical context and a critical analysis of events and personal interactions while at the same time honoring how these individuals understood those moments to be their truth and perspective. In doing so, I am reminded of what historian John Rosa instructs, which is to value people more than books.⁶ Indeed, the perspective of interviewees sometimes contradicted and even challenged other sources while also validating particular experiences that were shared by others. Archival sources were gathered in English, Spanish, and Hawaiian. Most of my interviews were also conducted in English and, in some instances, Spanish, depending on what language the interviewee felt most comfortable speaking. For archival sources in Spanish, I did some of my own translation with the assistance of colleagues who were more fluent in certain colloquialisms. Archival documents in Hawaiian oftentimes had English translations, which I know may not be the most accurate translations if done by non–Native Hawaiian speakers. In those instances, I sought out the assistance of other colleagues who were Native Hawaiian and were either familiar with or native speakers of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. This approach to examining several language sources provides additional perspectives from the people and the events that occurred in the pages that follow.

Aloha Compadre

Map 1. Map of Latin American and Caribbean countries that have a population greater than one hundred persons living in Hawaiʻi in 2019. (Source: Map created by Nicholas Goettl.)

Introduction

The Deportation of Andres Magaña Ortiz

On July 7, 2017, Andres Magaña Ortiz said goodbye to his wife and three children—all of whom are U.S. citizens—and boarded a flight bound for México, where he will remain separated from his family until he can be petitioned by his daughter Victoria to become a legal permanent resident. It is a process that could take up to ten years.¹ Andres Magaña Ortiz is forty-three years old, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States for nearly thirty years. His family, community, and life’s work are all in Hawaiʻi. In 1989, at the age of fifteen, he was smuggled across the Arizona-México border to reunite with his mother, who was working in California at the time. They eventually made their way to Hawaiʻi, where he picked coffee as a migrant laborer in Kona, on Hawaiʻi Island (Big Island).² Within ten years he was able to save enough money to purchase six acres of farmland in Holualoa and begin his journey as a farm owner. He named his farm El Molinito (the mill), which had an old Japanese-style coffee mill that he began renovating in 2008.³ According to the Washington Post, in the years that followed, Magaña Ortiz rose to prominence in Hawaiʻi’s coffee industry. In 2010, he allowed the US Department of Agriculture to use his farm without charge to conduct a five-year study into a destructive insect species harming Hawaiʻi’s coffee crops. After that, he was the most sought-after coffee grower for his expertise in ridding coffee farms in Kona and other areas of Hawaiʻi Island of 98 percent of the destructive borer beetles.⁴

In addition, Magaña Ortiz was also responsible for managing over one hundred acres of land among fifteen other small farmers, which included the elderly and those who were inexperienced and could not do the work on their own.⁵ His dream of continuing to live in Hawaiʻi was short lived, however. In 2011, under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security began removal proceedings against Magaña Ortiz.⁶ He was informed that he would be deported to México, a place he is simply no longer familiar with. In response, Magaña Ortiz petitioned for legal residency and was granted multiple stays, yet his most recent request to gain legal residency was rejected by the Trump administration. Under the guise of cracking down on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security ordered Magaña Ortiz to leave in March 2017.⁷ It did not matter that he already had petitioned for legal residency as the husband of a U.S. citizen—he had to go. As Magaña Ortiz noted, I never tried to hide it. I always answered my phone when immigration called me and said come see us. . . . I come to each court on time. Everything, I tried to do all my best.⁸ Given that Magaña Ortiz was a well-known and respected member of the community and a leader of Hawaiʻi’s coffee industry, his case made national headlines.

A team of attorneys assisted Magaña Ortiz by filing last-minute petitions to grant him more time in the United States. Even Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation supported his case, speaking on his behalf to Homeland Security secretary John F. Kelly to halt his removal. As the four-member delegation wrote, He is trying to do the right thing.⁹ In addition, representative and onetime presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard introduced a bill to make Magaña Ortiz eligible for legal, permanent residency. Senator Mazie Hirono also spoke on Magaña Ortiz’s behalf, stating, Andres’ ordeal speaks to the very real fear and anxiety spreading through immigrant communities across the country.¹⁰

Federal appeals court judges also supported Magaña Ortiz’s case, calling him a pillar of his community and criticizing the Trump administration handling of his case. For example, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit called Magaña Ortiz’s deportation contrary to the values of the country and its legal system. . . . The government decision to remove Magaña Ortiz diminishes not only our country but our courts, which are supposedly dedicated to the pursuit of justice.¹¹ Despite having a strong case, the inhospitable climate proved too much. Magaña Ortiz decided to depart voluntarily ahead of the deportation order. When interviewed by Hawaii News Now at Kona International Airport during his departure, he regarded the circumstances of his case: Very, very sad and very disappointed in many ways, but there’s not much I can do. . . . Just follow what I have to do and hopefully, in a little bit, things can get better.¹²

His family has fared no better because of this. Magaña Ortiz’s eldest daughter, Victoria, almost had to withdraw from college at the University of Hawaiʻi to help support the family as they struggled to keep their father’s business afloat.¹³ She graduated a little later than expected but was able to finish her education online. As Victoria noted about this sudden responsibility for managing the family business,

I think I would have liked to have my own business when I created it. You slowly go with it, but the thing was running and going full speed, and I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. So I think that was the pressure. My dad is now deported. My mom has had back surgery; she’s injured, so she doesn’t work. I have my brother and my sister, so I have all four of them on my plate all of a sudden. And my dad had always been the one to solve problems. My mom was always like, We have a dentist appointment. Fill out these forms for me. Normal Hispanic child, right? And my dad was always the one that I used to run to when I had issues. And suddenly my safety net is just gone. So I think it was really hard for me when that happened because suddenly I was the one to make the decisions and have all the responsibilities.¹⁴

Andres Magaña Ortiz’s journey took him to the municipal city of Morelia, México, to a village called El Rincon de Don Pedro, Michoacán, where he had once lived before coming to the United States. Magaña Ortiz will remain in México until he is reunited with his family back in Hawaiʻi, a place they consider home. As Magaña Ortiz shared before he left, I love this country and I love these islands. If I have to leave, it’s going to be hard on everyone.¹⁵ The separation of Andres from his wife and children left them with an urgent sense of fear and uncertainty. They said their goodbyes at home so that the younger children did not have to go to the airport and be further subjected to the trauma of seeing their father leave. For Victoria, it was all surreal. She shared, After so much fight that we went through, for it to just end like this. I mean, it’s not necessarily the ending, but it is hard to see him go. She added, We’re still fighting to get him back here.¹⁶

Political Context in Contemporary Hawaiʻi

Andres Magaña Ortiz’s story and that of his family speak to the current political situation around immigration in Hawaiʻi and across the continental United States. What makes his story both powerful and tragic is that Magaña Ortiz was not the exaggerated racial stereotype of a criminal that Trump had suggested was invading the United States. Rather, he was a husband, father, and business owner who contributed to the social and economic prosperity of Hawaiʻi’s Kona coffee industry. Andres’s daughter Victoria was also disheartened at how her father was categorized as a criminal and deported because of a previous charge of driving under the influence (DUI). Under the law, his DUI was enough to start deportation proceedings, despite having an exemplary record as a longtime resident of Hawaiʻi. Victoria remarked, If my dad, being so loved here and being a workaholic and he’s still justified as a criminal for a mistake that he did, who else are you putting into these things [categories]? Are they getting traffic tickets? They’re not supposed to just take your life away like that.¹⁷

Despite the outpouring of legal and political support in Hawaiʻi and the aloha (love and inclusion) Magaña Ortiz received from the various communities mentioned, under the Trump administration, he was ordered to leave. There was no consideration of the benefit his contributions were making to the state and his local community. Rather, because he is Mexican and undocumented—not by his choice—and subject to the racism of the justice system, he was forcibly removed from his family, friends, and longtime home to a place he no longer knows.¹⁸ His story reminds us of how poorly the United States has treated its citizens, whether legally documented or not. It is likely there were many conservative settlers in Hawaiʻi who applauded his deportation because they deem Latinx people a threat. However, there was a huge outpouring of support and aloha from the larger community who understood the humanity of his case and sought to support Magaña Ortiz through calls, petitions, and other means. Although he had to leave Hawaiʻi, his story and legacy resonate with me in terms of what it means to be Latinx in Hawaiʻi today in a national climate of increasing xenophobia and racism toward immigrants. I say this as someone who has been privileged to come to Hawaiʻi for more than twenty years, spending that time living, building intimate ties with the Latinx communities, and nurturing my existing networks of hānai and chosen family, friends, and colleagues who identify as Native Hawaiian, local, haole, and/or transplants to the islands. My observations reveal that although Hawaiʻi has long been a place known for its aloha, this seminal Hawaiian concept is being tested by the growing racist, xenophobic tide that is washing upon Hawaiʻi’s shores from outsiders, both haole and non-Native settlers.¹⁹

It is here that I turn to what Magaña Ortiz’s story represents to the larger Latinx community in Hawaiʻi, which has been the growing xenophobia and racism that is being fueled by the larger national climate through popular discourse in the media, writers, pundits, scholars, and politicians. This sentiment reveals the ever-present tension in Hawaiʻi that is now more visible because of the infectious nature of racism and white supremacy. At the same time, I am also mindful of the ways that Kānaka Maoli continue to be dispossessed and displaced from their homeland within a settler colonial system. They must also be included in this conversation, since Latinx migration is made possible through the suppression of Native Hawaiian self-governance. Seen by most residents as recent migrants or newcomers, the Latinx population of Hawaiʻi is increasing in numbers, but that growth is also hidden in plain sight. Due in part to Hawaiʻi’s already historically mixed population that also includes Pacific Islanders and Asians among other racial and ethnic groups, the Latinx population is often mistaken as local in Hawaiʻi depending on the context.²⁰

Though increasing with new migrations, the Latinx population is not new to the Hawaiian Islands. On the contrary, Latinxs have been voyaging to the Hawaiian archipelago for 190 years, yet their presence has been rendered invisible by the tourist industry and within the larger local population. Aloha Compadre demonstrates what historian Evelyn Hu-DeHart also notes about Asians in Latin America, that these histories are hidden in plain view. There is no single, monolithic story to explain migration, and Latinx movements to Hawaiʻi and the larger Pacific region are as varied as the cultures that fall under the umbrella term Latinx.²¹ A small but steady flow of migration has occurred since the early 1830s; this has been both interrupted at times and inconsistent. Their roots, however, remain, as they were part of the first groups of foreigners who came during the reign of the Kamehamehas.²²

As the first full-length study of the Latinx population in Hawaiʻi, in Aloha Compadre I offer the following: (1) I reveal how the Latinx population of Hawaiʻi is not a new phenomenon but a 190-plus-year journey of migration and intercultural community and identity building; (2) I expand our notion of how we understand and view la frontera (the borderlands) to include the ocean as a site of movement beyond terrestrial regions, which challenges us to see the continuous diaspora of Latinxs that spans globally across oceanic spaces; and (3) I explore how the Latinx population in Hawaiʻi has experienced both acceptance and aloha in their new home and also racism and being racialized in a climate that is increasingly becoming xenophobic. And precisely within this context, I explore how their acceptance or marginalization has occurred from the independent Hawaiian Kingdom to the twenty-first century, which seems to be contingent on their contributions, including but not limited to economic and cultural ones. My project analyzes how these experiences complicate the dominant narrative of Hawaiʻi as a multiracial utopia, an image shaped by early and contemporary writers who visited the islands. Aloha Compadre also documents the changing political climate in Hawaiʻi up to the early twenty-first century and how the Latinx population navigates the current tides of immigration policies, racism and xenophobia, and interracial relationships as they seek to build their communities and find a sense of belonging in the diaspora.

This is the story of the predominantly Spanish-speaking Latinx communities of Hawaiʻi and the social, political, and economic forces that influenced their migration thousands of miles across the Pacific for nearly two centuries. Similar to what anthropologist Sara V. Komarnisky has documented about the historical migrations of Mexicans to Alaska, the same can be said of Latinx migrations to Hawaiʻi in that "in some cases, the process of putting down roots requires mobility."²³ It is why there is both a large and rising Latinx population in Hawaiʻi. Rather than focus on a continual historic-to-contemporary timeline of migration and community formation, I will focus on four pivotal moments when the Latinx population came to Hawaiʻi, from the era of the independent Hawaiian Kingdom in the 1830s to the early 2000s. These four pivotal moments all center on the labor of specific Latinx communities throughout the islands: (1) Mexicans in the 1830s, (2) Puerto Ricans in the early 1900s, (3) Mexicans and Central Americans in the 1990s, and (4) Mexicans and Central Americans in the early 2000s. I suggest that Latinx migration in these four moments was vital to the continuing legacy of specific industries in Hawaiʻi, including cattle ranching, sugar cane, pineapple, Kona coffee, and macadamia nuts. Indeed, the need for labor was one of the primary reasons Latinxs came to Hawaiʻi, but it did not define them as such. Others came as small business owners, students, or the military.

While labor was the impetus for Latinx migrations in these episodic moments, I look at the lives of my Latinx interviewees using a more complex approach to demonstrate that they are more than just workers.²⁴ I focus on the stories I uncovered while doing archival and ethnographic research and the oral testimonies of individuals who were gracious enough to share their stories with me. Their stories are central to this study and bring to life the human element of these moments. For me, it is important to hear the stories of those who labored in these industries, humanize them, and examine how they adapted to their new home and found ways to develop their identities and communities in the diaspora within a Pacific Island context. Their stories illustrate the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and challenges of the Latinx population by providing insight into what we can learn about migration, adaptation and belonging, and cultural multiplicity in Hawaiʻi. These stories also provide meaningful interpretations of historical events from the perspectives of those who lived through them. They help us understand why those moments mattered to both the interviewees and historical figures who left behind a written record.

Map 2. Hispanic or Latino population in Hawaiian counties in 1990. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 1990 and U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, County 1990, U.S. SL050 Coast Clipped Shapefile, prepared by Social Explorer; U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 2020 and U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, County 2019, U.S. SL050 Coast Clipped Shapefile, prepared by Social Explorer. Map created by Nicholas Goettl.) Note: All figures using U.S. Census and/or American Community Survey (ACS) data do not use the term Latinx, so I have kept their designated terms, Hispanic or Latino.

Map 3. Hispanic or Latino population in Hawaiian counties in 2020. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 1990 and U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, County 1990, U.S. SL050 Coast Clipped Shapefile, prepared by Social Explorer; U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 2020 and U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division, County 2019, U.S. SL050 Coast Clipped Shapefile, prepared by Social Explorer. Map created by Nicholas Goettl.) Note: All figures using U.S. Census and/or ACS data do not use the term Latinx, so I have kept their designated terms, Hispanic or Latino.

This story ends in the late 2010s, when a new presidency ushered in another era of racial patriotism, xenophobia, injustice, and fear.²⁵ Yet that new administration was also met with a continued resolve by Latinxs both in the continental United States and in Hawaiʻi to resist and make way for the possibility of a new society where racial justice can be achieved. I also end with the story of Victoria Magaña Ledesma, the daughter of Andres Magaña Ortiz. Her experience urges us to consider how she and others are coping with renewed political attacks and racism directed against the Latinx population. I encourage others to pick up where I have left off and continue expanding these community narratives and exploring what their collective experience means for the Latinx population as they continue to migrate to the Hawaiian Islands and find a place to call home.

The Latinx population of Hawaiʻi in 2019 was estimated at 149,118 people, an increase of approximately 80 percent since 2000. The vast majority of this growth occurred between 2000 and 2010.²⁶ This demographic spike reveals what sociologist Iris López notes about the rising growth of Latinx immigrants to Hawaiʻi, that it is contributing to a more expansive pan-Latino identity. Indeed, as Hawaiʻi Hispanic News noted, the Latinx population in Hawaiʻi represents more than twenty-two Latin American countries, and as other scholars have observed, unlike the continental United States, there are no Latinx-specific barrios in Hawaiʻi, which enables them to blend with the larger Native Hawaiian and local populations.²⁷ Honolulu Civil Beat also reported that recent data from the U.S. Census suggest that by 2023, Hawaiʻi’s Latinx population will grow to an estimated 186,611, or just over 12.29 percent of the state’s residents.²⁸ This steady growth ensures that the Latinx population in Hawaiʻi will be a major voting bloc in the not-so-distant future. Similarly, a Pew Research Center study highlighted that Hawaiʻi—despite being the fortieth state in terms of total population—is home to the twenty-first-largest statewide Latinx population share in the nation. As of 2014, Latinx people composed 8 percent of Hawaiʻi’s eligible voters.²⁹ The rising population, however, is not without its opponents, which I will address in detail throughout this book.

Graph 1. Comparison of Hispanic or Latino growth to the overall population in Hawaiʻi. (Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 1990; U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 2000; U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 2010; U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic Status 2020, prepared by Social Explorer. Chart created by Nicholas Goettl.)

Aloha Compadre is not meant to be the definitive study on the presence of Latinx groups in Hawaiʻi. Rather, it is meant to initiate the conversation and to begin mapping out the intricacies of these migrations and the complexity of relationships that have developed both in cooperation and in tension with other groups in Hawaiʻi, particularly as they pertain to the American Dream narrative of Latinx immigrants, which can be at odds with Indigenous rights. This includes, for example, their relationship to Native Hawaiians and the ongoing issues of settler colonialism, since they (Kānaka Maoli) have been contesting U.S. occupation since 1893. This has led to the ongoing suppression of culture, rights, access to land, and the displacement of Native Hawaiians, who never relinquished their sovereignty.³⁰ I leave sufficient space for work on other periods, including World War II, Latinxs who have served and continue to serve in the U.S. military, and various occupations that employed thousands of other Latinx workers outside of agriculture.³¹ Given the historical presence of Latinxs in the region, the collective narrative of voices and experiences is meant to shed light on the moments that facilitated significant migrations of Latinxs to Hawaiʻi. Be they social, economic, or political, these moments laid the foundation for future migrations. This study shows that the Latinx population comprises not just recent arrivals to the islands but historical actors who have witnessed many changes since the days of the independent Hawaiian Kingdom. I hope this book will inspire others to continue this story and expand on these narratives that demonstrate the historical and cultural contributions Latinxs have made to Hawaiʻi and how they have also learned and benefited by being in an Indigenous space that is both similar to and also different from their home countries.³² This story is part of an expansive, living community archive waiting to be discovered—one that will continue to grow and reveal the stories of Latinxs in the diaspora who have come to settle across Oceania.

Table 1.

Hispanic or Latino population breakdown, 2019

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B03001; Data.census.gov, https://data.census.gov/cedsci/. Table created by Nicholas Goettl.

*Brazilians were not counted as Hispanic or Latino in the U.S. Census. See National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations, 2020 Census: Race and Hispanic Origin Research Working Group Final Report, National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Population, U.S. Census Bureau, June 10, 2014, p. 21, https://www2.census.gov/cac/nac/reports/2014-06-10_RHO_wg-report.pdf.

Oceania and the Latinx Pacific Boarder-Lands

Named by explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, el Mar Pacifico (the Pacific Ocean) is a vast region encompassing over sixty million square miles, or 30 percent of the earth’s surface, making it the world’s largest and deepest ocean. It is also larger than the landmass of all the continents combined.³³ Most academic and popular references to the Pacific discuss the island, atolls, and