KE AUPUNI UPDATE - FEBRUARY 2024
How Many Hawaiians Are There?
In September (2023) several news outlets reported a story that said, according to the United States 2020 Census, for the first time ever, more native Hawaiians live in the continental U.S. than here in the Hawaiian Islands. The stories said, of the, 680,442 Native Hawaiians counted in the census, 47 percent live in Hawaiʻi, while 53 percent resided on the US continent. It was not a surprise, we saw it coming.
Years of increasing cost of living driven by displacement, commercial development, land speculation, low paying jobs and social tensions has driven away many Hawaiians, especially “native Hawaiians” from their homeland. The exodus has been prevalent among young adults starting out in life, with grim prospects of a future in Hawaii, for a decent job or affording a home to start a family. This is a tragic situation.
But the diaspora is worse than we thought. Hawaii has become so American-minded that we blindly think the number, 680,442 refers to all the native Hawaiians on the planet, when it only represents those who reside in Hawaii and the U.S. What about all those native Hawaiians who live elsewhere in the world? How many are in Europe, Asia, Africa, North, Central and South America? Australia and Oceania? I can’t find any stats on them, and perhaps, none exists. Has anyone counted them? Has anyone reached out to them?
And thatʻs not all. What about those who are not ethnically Hawaiians (not “native Hawaiians”) but Hawaiians by birth, by hānai (adoption), by family ties generations long, and by their Aloha ʻĀina, love of the land? When we talk about Lāhui, we are talking about all those who identify as Hawaiians, regardless of their ethnic, cultural or political background.
Surely there are many thousands of Hawaiians spread out in the rest of the world — but no one seems to have counted them! ... not the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamehameha Schools, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, the State of Hawaii, and not the United States Census Bureau. This means the Hawaiians who live in places other than Hawaii and the U.S. statistically don’t exist! But we know they are there, and that Hawaii is their homeland.
That means not only are there way more native Hawaiians in the world than the population stats tell us, it also means, when we include all the other Hawaiians — those who carry Hawaiʻi in their hearts — our Lāhui (our nation of Aloha) and our future is way bigger and deeper than we had imagined.
“Love of country is deep-seated in the breast of every Hawaiian, whatever his station.” — Queen Liliʻuokalani
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Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
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For the latest news and developments about our progress at the United Nations in both New York and Geneva, tune in to Free Hawaii News at
6 PM the first Friday of each month on ʻŌlelo Television, Channel 53.
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Malama Pono,
Leon Siu
Hawaiian National
