Pacific Islanders

Pacific Islanders refers to the indigenous people of the Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian islands. Polynesia refers to the islands settled by Polynesians, which includes (but is not limited to) Tahiti, Hawai'i, American and Western Samoa, Tonga, Rapanui (Easter Island), the Cook Islands, and French Polynesia. Micronesia refers to the islands in the Western Pacific with its main islands being the Carolina Islands (including Federated States of Micronesia and Palau), the Gilbert Islands, and the Mariana Islands (including Guam). The Chamorros are native to Guam and the Northern Marianas. The islands of Melanesia consist of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji. The history of the three divisions of the Pacific Islands is tied to the colonization process of the Pacific (also referred to as Oceania) and is related to the geographic locations of these islands rather than commonalities of culture and language. However, two areas of commonalities exist across these island cultures: (1) commitment to cultural values such as the emphasis on family, interdependence, holism, and harmony with nature; and (2) historical trauma due to colonization and the current challenges facing many Pacific cultures to maintain their cultural identity, lands, and traditions. To be consistent with the language of the U.S. Census, Pacific Islander will be referred to as a racial category.

In the field of counseling, there is some debate in terms of the distinction between race, ethnicity, and culture, yet no conclusion has been made indicating whether Pacific Islander is a racial or ethnic category. Each island has unique cultural aspects that may be similar to or different from those of other nearby islands; therefore, generalizations about chains of islands should be interpreted with caution given the heterogeneity within the Pacific Islands' cultures and their respective native inhabitants.

The 2000 U.S. Census was the first census to have Pacific Islander as a distinct racial category separate from Asian for all 50 states. The 2000 Census included three specific Pacific Islander groups—Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Guamanian or Chamorro—as well as a separate Other Pacific Islander response category for people to write in their Pacific ancestry. Other Pacific Islander groups living in the United States are Tahitian, Tokelauan, Mariana Islander, Saipanese, Palauan, Carolinian, Kosraean, Pohnpeian, Chuukese, Yapese, Marshallese, I-Kiribati, Fijian, Papua New Guinean, Solomon Islander, and Ni-Vanuatu. In the 2000 U.S. Census, the total number of individuals who identified as fully or partially Pacific Islander was 874,414 people (0.3% of the total U.S. population), with 398,835 reporting solely as Pacific Islander and 475,579 as Pacific Islander in combination with one or more races. The increase in Pacific Islanders (who indicated only one racial category) living in the United States was 9% from 1990 to 2000, while the increase of Pacific Islanders who indicated one or more races increased 140% within this same time period. The Pacific Islander racial category consists of more than 20 different groups with the 4 largest accounting for slightly over three fourths (76%) of this racial group: Hawaiians (n = 401,162; 45.9%) constituted the largest cluster of Pacific Islanders, followed by the Samoans (n = 133,281; 15.2%), the Chamorros [Page 1254]or Guamanians (n = 92,611; 10.6%), and the Tongans (n = 36,840; 4.2%). The other Pacific Islander ethnicity categories ranged from a total of 18 (Ni-Vanuatu) to 12,581 (Fijian) people living in the United States.

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