Cultural Projects - Descendants of Immigrants

[urbanguy]

Here are a few project proposals that are planned around the state mainly by ethnic groups that want to be able to preserve their cultures and be able to teach their children and people who are interested in their historical contributions to Hawaii's immigrant past. Here's a few examples:

MAUI - Portuguese & Puerto Ricans

A&B funds double-museum for Maui

Source: Pacific Business News

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has deeded land for Heritage Hall, a double-museum to be built in Paia, Maui, to show the history and culture of Portuguese and Puerto Rican emigrants.

Heritage Hall, a non-profit founded to create these two resource centers, has acquired the land, across from Paia Mill, for $20,000, though it is appraised at $775,000.

"A&B's gift amounts to the difference, which is roughly three quarters of a million dollars, and for that we are profoundly grateful," said Dolores Bio, a member of the Maui Puerto Rican Association who is president of Heritage Hall.

In the 1990s, ethnic Puerto Rican and ethnic Portuguese leaders on Maui both approached A&B in search of help on sites for cultural repositories.

Audrey Rocha Reed, a member of the Portuguese Association of Maui and secretary of Heritage Hall, said A&B suggested the two groups work together.

"Both groups were initially reluctant to join forces," she said. "A&B's real gift to the Portuguese and Puerto Ricans may not only be the land. It may be the appreciation we have developed for each other as friends and partners."

The common bond is sugar. The first Portuguese and Puerto Rican immigrants worked on sugar plantations. And A&B, one of the main companies growing sugar then, still does.

Portuguese plantation workers first arrived in Honolulu on the ship Priscilla in 1878. By the time full-scale Portuguese immigration stopped in 1913, nearly 25,000 had moved to Hawaii.

More than 5,000 Puerto Rican immigrants came to Hawaii between 1900 and 1906. Their numbers later increased due to unrestricted immigration from a U.S. territory.

"While Heritage Hall itself is still to be built," A&B Properties President Robert Sasaki said, "our community has already witnesses the creation of a new entity that reflects a new relationship between two groups who discovered common memories and mutual goals."

Heritage Hall directors say the plan is for two resource centers with separate libraries of children's books written in Portuguese-English and Spanish-English.

The Big Island of Hawaii in Hilo - Portuguese

The Portuguese Commerce Cultural and Educational Center

Source: Hawaii Island Portuguese Chamber of Commerce

The purpose of the Center is "to preserve and promote the culture, heritage and history of the Portuguese in Hawai'i".

The Center is envisioned to be an 8,000 square feet multi-purpose facility capable of holding gatherings of up to 300 people with smaller meeting rooms for groups of 20-30. The Center will include a certified kitchen, office space, exhibits, and programs related to Portuguese history, culture, and arts. A forno (Portuguese stone oven) is also being planned.

Aerial view of Hilo town and future home of the cultural center

African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawaii in Honolulu - African American/Black

African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawaii

Source: African American Commercial Council Hawaii

The first migrants of African descent to Hawaii were originally from the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa. The earliest Caboverdeans to make Hawaii their home were crew members on whaling ships. Cape Verde consists of a group of island off the coast of Senegal in Western Africa. Brava, Cape Verde was a major shipping port and became a prime location to find crew members. These sailors were among those wishing to escape the harsh realities of life at sea. They jumped ship at Hawaii and swam to shore. There they began new lives with their Hawaiian neighbors. Some Caboverdeans were brought to Hawaii by established relatives. There don't seem to be Capoverdeans among the numbers of laborers brought over during the sugar plantation era. The Caboverdeans made contributions to Hawaii. They built homes, ranches, and farms. They married Hawaiian women and raised families. They worked as laborers in the fields, masons, attorneys, bookkeepers, and so forth. They owned businesses, farms, and ranches.

The largest contribution to the Portuguese community that Caboverdeans made may be the formation of the Sociedade de Santo Antonio (the Santo Antonio Society). The society was set up to help the Portuguese residents of Hawaii. Caboverdeans were among the founders and charter members of the society. The vice president was Ricardo Antonio Xavier, a native of Sao Nicolau, Cape Verde. The other Caboverdeans included: Antonio Joaquim Lopes of Boa Vista, Joao Vicente Gomes of Brava, Antonio Ramos of Sao Nicolau, Jose Mendes of Cape Verde, Aurelio Fortes Ramos (aka Archo Forts) of Cape Verde, Joao Pina of Cape Verde, and Manoel Antonio Barreto of Cape Verde.

[Mith242]

Interesting. I admit I've never been to Hawaii. But it's easy to forget just how ethnically diverse the area can be.

[urbanguy]

^Hi thanks for visiting. Yeah Hawaii is very very diverse it has such a long history of immigrants and inter-mingling. The plantation days alone brought in nearly 400,000 migrants from every corner of the world from Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, etc) to Asia (China, Japan/Okinawa, Philippines, Korea, India, etc) to Oceania (Banaba in Kiribati, Rotuma in Fiji, etc) to the Caribbean (Puerto Rico) and so on. The Whaling ship days also brought in Cape Verdeans off of West Africa and Greeks while the Missionary Days & Mormon movement brought in/attracted Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, etc the Sandlewood trade, Fur Trade and so on were also other periods that attracted foreign settlers. One of the best things of it all is that there was a lot of mixing because Hawaii did not suffer/experience from a lot of the segregation that the U.S. mainland did so neighborhoods were always mixed/multi-cultural and so came the formation of its unique Creole language (Hawaii Creole also known as Pidgin in Hawaii).

[Mith242]

^Hi thanks for visiting. Yeah Hawaii is very very diverse it has such a long history of immigrants and inter-mingling. The plantation days alone brought in nearly 400,000 migrants from every corner of the world from Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, UK, etc) to Asia (China, Japan/Okinawa, Philippines, Korea, India, etc) to Oceania (Banaba in Kiribati, Rotuma in Fiji, etc) to the Caribbean (Puerto Rico) and so on. The Whaling ship days also brought in Cape Verdeans off of West Africa and Greeks while the Missionary Days & Mormon movement brought in/attracted Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, etc the Sandlewood trade, Fur Trade and so on were also other periods that attracted foreign settlers. One of the best things of it all is that there was a lot of mixing because Hawaii did not suffer/experience from a lot of the segregation that the U.S. mainland did so neighborhoods were always mixed/multi-cultural and so came the formation of its unique Creole language (Hawaii Creole also known as Pidgin in Hawaii).

I've heard of Pidgin English before but didn't realize it was from Hawaii.

[urbanguy]

^Hi, well there are many forms of and uses of the name Pidgin English, Nigeria has one, Vanuatu has their own and a few other countries. However, although its called Pidgin in Hawaii and most commonly known as that there it's a Creole language cause it has evolved and continues to evolve and has words that were borrowed from many other languages.