When Captain James Cook first sailed to the island in 1778, the Chinese influence in Hawaii started in the late 1770s. Chinese immigrants to Hawaii first arrive in European-sailed ships. According to Wong (147), a carpenter who was in charge of fixing a swivel gun on a double canoe in Hawaii in 1789 was the first Chinese person to step foot on Hawaiian soil. According to estimates, one or more Chinese were abandoned by the British ships Iphigenia and North West America while they were exploring the island. Later, visitors from many different countries, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Britons, started to throng the island. Fan (2) adds that most of the Chinese migrants were attracted to Hawaii when it grew into a commercial center. In the wake of the 19th century, the Chinese laborers were imported from China to work on the Hawaiian sugar plantations. After the attempts to produce commercial sugar in Hawaii had failed, many Chinese became merchants, building hotels among other business enterprises.
The Zhongshan natives in China were the first to be brought in Hawaii due to their knowledge in sugar plantation and production. The Zhongshan Chinese made a greater percentage of the Chinese population in Hawaii until in 1852 when a higher number of Chinese migrated to Hawaii. Even so, the Chinese residing in Hawaii was still lesser in number as compared to the later years. As much as the Chinese population was small in number and sparsely populated, they had a few wealthy representative who stood in as their leaders and addressed any issue that affected the small Chinese community. The larger group of the Chinese population made trade networks that their predecessors had made in different Islands and ports. Soon afterward the Chinese town began to develop neighboring the Hawaiian capital seat of the governor. Chinatown served as a major commercial hub and social center and attracted more Chinese communities (Ling and Allan 173-178).
The Development of China Town
Kurashige (373) purports that China town started developing in the 1850s when there was a massive migration of the Chinese workers to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. Most Chinese came to Hawaii just for work and left their families back at home. Soon after the collapse of the sugar industry, most Chinese resorted to other means of survival. Others plowed back the money they acquired from laboring in a sugar plantation in various business entities, while others resorted to farming rice among other cash crops.
In the 1840s the Hawaiian administration passed a policy that allowed the Chinese to apply for citizenship through naturalization or marriage to Hawaiian native. In the 19th century most workers were men, and therefore most of the migrants were Chinese people. They married Hawaiian women and started building families; although most of these marriages were polygamous (most Chinese men had families back in China), the policies of Hawaii at that time allowed for polygamy (Wang 123-125).
Soon afterward the Chinese population in Hawaii was growing and integrating effectively with the natives as the Chinese were quick to learn the Hawaiian language. This integration was essential to the development of business and the harmonious environment that is fundamental to growth of the business. Less than ten years after the arrival of the first bunch of Chinese workers. Most of the Chinese operated approximately 60% of the wholesale and retail shops on the Island. By 1885 the Hawaiian authorities had issued 24% of commercial licenses to Chinese, 62% to the Chinese retail stores and 85% of the licenses to the Chinese-owned restaurants. The store keepers acted as banks and gave loans to their clients. Availability of land and friendly migration policies allowed the Chinese to settle in Hawaii, who finally developed the China town in Honolulu (Almaguer 191).
The Decline of China Town
One of the products that made China town to thrive was the sale of Opium. In fact, many Chinese dealers sold opium to start off various businesses. This trade flourished that the Chinese drug lords acquired massive wealth to buy land and control some sizeable regions within Hawaii. In 1886 the government started regulating the opium sales in Hawaii due to the dire effects of Opium (increase in immorality and robbery cases). A policy was passed that allowed taxation of the imported drug and the opium was not be bought by the native Hawaiians and the Japanese population on the Island only fellow Chinese were allowed to purchase opium . This slowed down business in Chintown, marking the start of the decline of the great China Town (Siodla 48-61).
From 1886 to 1990 China town had experienced two major fire attacks. The first attack was witnessed in 1886 and the second fire in 1990. 1889, fire was accidentally set out from one of the restaurants and ended up razing down most of Chinatown. The 1990 fire was set up deliberately to burn out the rats which were responsible for the spread of the bubonic plague. This fire ended up razing down the whole of Chinatown district. Some believe that this fire was intended to destroy the area to stop the economic dominance and threat posed by the Chinese. This set of fires made most people migrate to other parts of the Island and those that remained preferred to re-settle in the suburbs to avoid going homeless again. The post-fire buildings were constructed using bricks and masonry, unlike the past buildings that used wood. As much as the bricks and stones were fire resistant, they proved more expensive as compared to wood and therefore, not every trader who ones occupied Chinatown would not be able to put up a stone building (Siodla 48-61).
According to Wang (123-125), in 1900, Chinatown experienced the first epidemic in the history of America. Although the bubonic plague was declared a calamity in 1990, its existence could be traced two years prior. The authorities took long to acknowledge this disaster because it could have scared away business people and destroyed the reputation of the thriving Chinatown. From 1900 to 1904 people in Chinatown lost their lives and many others resettled to other places to escape the plague. This epidemic was halted in 1904; however, in 1907 the plague re-emerged again though this-this time the mortality rate was not as high in the previous attack.
During the rebuilding of Chinatown after the fire had claimed much of the city in 1900 and the bubonic disease claimed half of its population from 1900-1904, in 1906 earthquake struck the town. It is estimated that the city’s population at that time was 14,000 and close to 3,000 Chinese lost their lives and property destroyed (there are no records of the estimated amount of property destroyed in the earthquake). Within a period of 7 years, China town had faced various calamities from the two fires to the bubonic plague then the earthquake. By 1908 Chinatown was already on its knees and had lost the better part of it (Thomas and Max).
The current federal regulations also do not favor the growth of Chinatown for example; Chinatown excelled because they have many hotels and hospitality facilities. However, these were street hotels. The recent years have seen the government close these road hotels depriving Chinatown what once seemed to be an economic back-born of the region (De Graauw 87-93).
The aftermath of these ordeals have seen Chinatown loose its past glory, Chinatown in Honolulu has been depopulating in recent years rendering the town less residential and more service oriented. The 2010 census revealed that there was a significant drop in the Chinatown population for the first time. The decrease in the overall population was by 9% and a 14% decline in the Chinese population. The migration from Chinatown happening recently is partly due to the working classes that are currently being priced out of their various communities and are heading out to metropolitan areas for greener pastures. Secondly, the influx of migrants who need the connections that Chinatown provides is decreasing daily (Thomas and Max 203-207).
Conclusion
Chinatown (Honolulu) was one of the oldest trading centers in America. It attracted different people from different nationalities, and within 15 years of its existence, it was already a cosmopolitan town with the Chinese running most of the businesses in the town. If the Chinese migration was left unchecked in 1807, probably today Chinatown would have been bigger than it is. The policy passed by the administration in 1806 and later implemented in 1807 to regulate the number of Chinese migrants into Hawaii, helped in reducing the number of migrants. The later years saw the once prospering city faced with calamities that cut the town’s building to nearly half of what it was before. However, Chinatown still plays it role in contributing to the national G.D.P mainly through offering tourism and hospitality services.
Work Cited
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Ling, Huping, and Allan W. Austin. Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2015: 173-178
Siodla, James. "Razing San Francisco: The 1906 disaster as a natural experiment in urban redevelopment." Journal of Urban Economics 89 (2015): 48-61.
Thomas, Gordon, and Max Morgan-Witts. The San Francisco Earthquake. Open Road Media, 2014: 203-207
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