Native Hawaiians

Native Hawaiians (in Hawaiian, kanaka ‘oiwi or kanaka māoli) are the indigenous Polynesian peoples of the Hawaiian Islands who trace their ancestry back to antiquity before the arrival of British explorer Captain James Cook in 1778. According to the U.S. Census Bureau report for 2000, there are 476,000 people who identified themselves as being native Hawaiian, part native Hawaiian and mixed native Hawaiian. Most native Hawaiians are residents of the United States in California, the State of Hawaii, Nevada and Washington. Two-thirds live in the State of Hawaii while the other one-third is split among mainland states. Almost half of the mainland share of the population is in California.

Further reading

• Maenette K. Nee-Benham and Ronald H. Heck, Culture and Educational Policy in Hawaii: The Silencing of Native Voices, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1998
• Scott Cunningham Hawaiian Magic and Spirituality, Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., 2000
• Rona Tamiko Tamiko Halualani, In the Name of Hawaiians: Native Identities and Cultural Politics, University of Minnesota Press, 2002
• Marshall D. Sahlins, How Natives Think: About Captain Cook, for Example, University of Chicago Press, 1995
• Thomas G. Thrum, Hawaiian Folk Tales: A Collection of Native Legends, International Law & Taxation Publishers, 2001
• Thomas G. Thrum, More Hawaiian Folk Tales: A Collection of Native Legends and Traditions, International Law & Taxation Publishers, 2001
• Houston Wood, Displacing Natives: The Rhetorical Production of Hawai'i, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999
• Kanalu G. Terry Young Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past, Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1998