Cultural Centers

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**Here's some of the Cultural Centers in the region, if you have pics or links to any others please feel free to post them especially for Alaska.

Honolulu

Waipahu Cultural Center

This outdoor history museum tells the story of life on Hawaii?s sugar plantations (c. 1900). The village includes restored buildings and replicas of plantation structures such as houses of different ethnic groups, the community bath, camp office and plantation store.

Between 1852 and 1946, approximately 395,000 people were brought to Hawaii to work in the sugar fields. Immigrant groups who came to Hawaii, include: Chinese, Korean, Filipino(Illocano/Tagalog/Visayan/Cebuano/Bikol/Pangasinan), Japanese, Okinawan, Gilbert Islanders (I-Kiribati), Banaban, Norwegians, Germans, Galacians, Spanish, Puerto Ricans (Caribe'/Taino), Portuguese (Azorean/Cape Verdean, etc), Hindus, African Americans and Russians etc. **For the Spanish & Portuguese, Hawaii was a stepping stone to the mainland.

The shared experiences of backbreaking labor, low pay and constant supervision created the foundation for these laborers to overcome their differences and find common ground.

Hawaii?s plantation communities always had a disproportionate number of single male workers and in the early years, social relationships were associated with a bachelor lifestyle. Not until 1920 did women and children make up half of the plantation community.

The workers who stayed in Hawaii and raised families forged a new plantation community in which elements of their individual cultures merged to form the basis of modern multicultural Hawaii.

Japanese Shrine

Chinese House

Hawaiian Hut

January 4 Narcissus Flower Carving

February 15 New Beginnings and Chinese New Year

February 24 Parol Making

March 4 Portuguese Day

Malasada Day Sale

(Pick up: 3:00 pm - 8:00 pm)

Hawaii's Plantation Village

April 12 Filial Piety-Honoring our Ancestry

April 26 Puerto Rican Day

May 3 The Festival of Flowers

June 7 Obon Dance

September 13 Pacific Islanders II

November 15 Harvest Festival

December 6 Search for an Inn

Here are some stats of some of the immigrants that came to Hawaii to work in the plantation fields

7,000 KOREANS 1903-1905

17,500 PORTUGUESE (Azorean/Cape Verdean, etc) 1878-1913

5,200 PUERTO RICANS 1900

46,000 CHINESE 1852-1897

180,000 JAPANESE (including Okinawan) 1885-1924

The Filipino Community Center

Hawaii's Filipinos have come a long way since the arrival of the Sakadas in 1906. Since then, Filipinos in Hawaii have made great strides in all aspects of Hawaii's society. Nearly a century after the establishment of Hawaii's Filipino Community, the dream of having a gathering place to purpetuate the Filipino culture and community has come become a reality.

**The FilCom Center is the biggest Filipino community center in the entire United States and outside the Philippines.

Japanese Cultural Center:

Chinese Cultural Plaza:

Polynesian Cultural Center:

In each village, natives demonstrate crafts and skills such as creating clothing from bark, telling stories through dance, weaving baskets with leaves, and making fire by rubbing sticks. You'll also see them reenact war dances and wedding ceremonies, carve tiki figures, wield fire knives, and climb four-story trees in their bare feet. During feature presentations, you'll hear intriguing descriptions of cooking methods, transoceanic travel, and the preservation of traditions and history without a written language.

**Cultures representated are Hawaiian, Maori, Tahitian, Marquesan, Samoan, Tongan, & Fijian (Fijians are Melanesians actually, but the ethnic group Rotuman of Fiji are Polynesian) Latest additions to the Polynesian Cultural Center are the culture & peoples of Niue, The Cook Islands, & Rapa Nui

Korean Cultural Center:

Hispanic Center of Hawaii:

United Puerto Rican Center of Hawaii:

Kewalo Portuguese Holy Ghost Society:

Kauai Aadheenam - Hindu

Alaska

Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center - Sitka

Alaska Native Heritage Center

The Heritage Center was completed in early 1999, and is located on 26 acres of beautiful land, tucked behind the Glenn Highway and Muldoon Road. The Center was constructed to celebrate, perpetuate, and share the different Alaska Native traditions for the enrichment of all Alaskans, as well as visitors from around the world.

The Heritage Center places a great deal of investment in its educational component. It works to provide understanding of the five groups of Alaska Natives:

1-Athabascan

2-Yup?ik and Cup?ik

3-Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik

4-Aleut and Alutiiq

5-Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian