Yes, Native Hawaiians are Pacific Islanders. The U.S. federal government officially classifies them under the “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” (NHPI) racial category, alongside Samoans, Chamorros, Tongans, Fijians, Marshallese, and other peoples with origins in the Pacific Islands. Native Hawaiians are, in fact, the largest single group within that category, making up roughly 60 percent of the NHPI population in the United States.
What the Federal Classification Covers
The federal standard defines Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander as individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. This includes Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Chamorros (the indigenous people of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tongans, Fijians, Marshallese, and dozens of other groups. The category spans three broad cultural regions of the Pacific: Polynesia (which includes Hawaii, Samoa, and Tonga), Melanesia (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu), and Micronesia (Guam, the Marshall Islands, Chuuk, Pohnpei).
Why the Category Exists Separately From “Asian”
Before 1997, the federal government lumped all of these groups together with East Asian and South Asian populations under a single “Asian or Pacific Islander” label. That changed when the Office of Management and Budget revised its racial classification standards in October 1997, splitting the category into “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” as two distinct groups.
The split happened largely because Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islander communities argued, successfully, that their social, economic, and health data was being buried inside the much larger Asian American population. Native Hawaiians made up only about 3 percent of the old combined category, making it nearly impossible to track disparities in housing, education, employment, and health. The new classification took effect with the 2000 Census.
How Large Is the NHPI Population?
The 2020 Census counted 31 detailed NHPI groups, and nearly all of them grew over the previous decade. Native Hawaiians remain the largest group by a wide margin, with 680,442 people identifying as Native Hawaiian alone or in combination with other races or ethnicities, a 29.1 percent increase from 2010. Samoans are the second-largest group at about 257,000, followed by Chamorros at roughly 144,000. Tongans, Fijians, and Marshallese each had populations exceeding 50,000.
Several smaller Pacific Islander communities more than doubled in size between 2010 and 2020, including Chuukese, Marshallese, Pohnpeian, and Papua New Guinean populations. Much of this growth reflects both natural population increase and continued migration from Pacific Island nations to the U.S. mainland and Hawaii.
The Ancestral Connection Across the Pacific
Native Hawaiians share deep ancestral roots with other Pacific Islander groups. Archaeological evidence places the first Polynesian settlers in the Hawaiian archipelago between 300 and 800 AD. Those settlers traced their origins to East Asia, but genetic research has shown they didn’t simply pass through the rest of the Pacific without mixing with local populations along the way.
A study published in PLoS One analyzing the genomes of individuals with full Native Hawaiian ancestry found that roughly 68 percent of their genetic heritage traces to Asian origins and about 32 percent to Melanesian ancestry. That substantial Melanesian component supports what researchers call the “Slow Boat” model of Pacific migration: rather than a rapid, nonstop voyage from East Asia to the remote Pacific, ancestral Polynesians intermixed significantly with Melanesian populations as they island-hopped across Oceania over many generations. This genetic history connects Native Hawaiians to a broader web of Pacific Islander peoples.
“Hawaiian” vs. “Native Hawaiian”
One important distinction that often causes confusion: “Native Hawaiian” refers specifically to people of indigenous Hawaiian ancestry, the descendants of the Polynesian people who originally settled the islands. “Hawaii resident” is the correct term for anyone who lives in the state regardless of ethnic background. The AP Stylebook notes that “Hawaiians” refers to members of the indigenous ethnic group, not to all state residents. So not every person from Hawaii is a Pacific Islander, but Native Hawaiians are.
A Unique Political Status
Within the broader NHPI category, Native Hawaiians hold a distinct political position. The U.S. Department of the Interior maintains an Office of Native Hawaiian Relations, reflecting a trust relationship between the federal government and Native Hawaiians that parallels, in some respects, the government’s relationship with Native American tribes. Other Pacific Islander groups in the U.S. have different legal standings depending on whether they come from U.S. territories like Guam and American Samoa, or from independent nations like Tonga and Fiji, or from Compact of Free Association states like the Marshall Islands, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia, whose citizens can live and work in the U.S. under special treaty agreements.
These political differences matter for access to federal benefits and programs, but they don’t change the shared racial and cultural classification. Whether someone is Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Chamorro, Tongan, or Marshallese, they all fall under the NHPI umbrella for purposes of federal data collection, civil rights monitoring, and program eligibility.