Pacific islander people

Pacific islander ethnicity
Pacific islands history timeline
Pacific islander women

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Pacific Islanders from Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, and Tahiti have made their homes in Utah since the late 1800s. There are many reasons why Pacific Islanders immigrated to Utah, and their experience and perspectives are an important piece of Utah’s past.

Push and Pull Factors

A combination of political unrest, disease, and changes in society and culture often pushed Pacific Islanders to other parts of the world, including Utah. Membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pulled some Pacific Islanders to Utah. Education and economic opportunities also pulled many people from the Pacific Islands to Utah. Pacific Islanders cultural identity evolved once they arrived in Utah and brought their old traditions, religious observances, and holidays and blended them with new ones.

Settling

Hawaiians were some of the first immigrants from the Pacific Islands. For example, in 1876, six Hawaiians moved to Salt Lake City including a woman named Likibeka. Likibeka and her husband, John W. Kauleinamoku built a house in the Warm Springs District of North Salt Lake C

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Colonialism, Conflict, and Resource Extraction in the Pacific Islands

Many early Pacific Island cultures were hierarchical, with a chief as leader. When the Europeans first encountered the islands in Oceania in the 1500s, they often refused (or failed) to recognize these social structures, thus beginning centuries of intrusion into lands and cultures that had been thriving for thousands of years. As European and American government officials, military forces, missionaries, merchants, medical workers, company employees, and other visitors continued their incursion into the area, they forever changed the region.

The tapa and woven mat collection at NHMLAC is part of this history. From soldiers and medical workers to employees of companies engaging in resource extraction, many visitors collected cultural material from the local communities. Much of this material was donated to American and European museums—including NHMLAC—creating vast collections rooted in colonialism and developed with an outsider’s perspective on the culture.

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Pacific Islander

Person from the Pacific Islands

This article is about the peoples of the Pacific Islands. For all peoples indigenous to Oceania, see Indigenous peoples of Oceania. For the rugby union team, see Pacific Islanders rugby union team.

Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands.^[1] As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas^[1]—of any of the three major subregions of Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia) or any other island located in the Pacific Ocean.

Melanesians include the Fijians (Fiji), Kanaks (New Caledonia), Ni-Vanuatu (Vanuatu), Papua New Guineans (Papua New Guinea), Solomon Islanders (Solomon Islands), West Papuans (Indonesia's West Papua) and Moluccans (Indonesia's Maluku Islands).

Micronesians include the Carolinians (Caroline Islands), Chamorros (Guam and Northern Mariana Islands), Chuukese (Chuuk), I-Kiribati (Kiribati), Kosraeans (Kosrae), Marshallese (Marshall Islands), Palauans (Palau),