Day 352: Chinatown Historic District, Honolulu, Hawai’i
📌APIA Every Day (352) - Honolulu’s Chinatown Historic District was first established in the 1840s and 1850s by early Chinese migrant workers in Hawai’i. The community continued to grow as these laborers completed their contracts on sugar plantations and settled in the neighborhood to open businesses. Chinatown eventually became a significant commercial and cultural center in Honolulu, providing Chinese immigrants with employment opportunities and a strong sense of community.
Located along Honolulu Harbor, early Chinatown originally held economic ties to the Hawaiian whaling industry. However, as sugar plantations became the dominant economic force in the Islands, the district expanded in the 1850s to accommodate the influx of Chinese plantation workers. By 1882, Chinatown had become a booming commercial center, and its businesses were the second-largest employers of Chinese immigrants after the plantations.
In 1886, a fire that ignited in a restaurant destroyed eight blocks of the neighborhood. Though the area was quickly rebuilt, the new wooden structures were densely packed and lacked fire safety standards. In 1899, a rat infestation from Honolulu Harbor led to an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the district. Around 7,000 of Chinatown’s residents were quarantined and eventually evacuated as the city’s health department began burning buildings that had housed infected individuals. One of these controlled burns unexpectedly spread, resulting in the destruction of 35 acres of the city in 1900. By May of that same year, Honolulu was declared plague-free and Chinatown reemerged as a prosperous commercial center by the 1920s.
The neighborhood began to face issues of decline in the 1930s, partly due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which reduced the area’s Chinese population. As the Chinese residents moved out, Japanese and Filipino immigrants began to move in, creating a multicultural business district. By the 1950s and ‘60s, however, these businesses struggled to remain open as local foot traffic decreased. Revitalization efforts led by the community and city government then began in the 1980s, including the construction of Maunakea Marketplace and Kekaulike Mall to draw greater commerce and tourism to Chinatown.
In 1973, the Chinatown Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places and was later made a Preserve America Community in 2006. Today, it remains a lively multicultural neighborhood full of various East and Southeast Asian restaurants, markets, and stores. As a part of the Honolulu Arts District, Chinatown also represents the artistic heart of the city, featuring numerous art galleries and exhibition spaces.
Written by Avneet Dhaliwal
LEARN MORE:
National Park Service: Chinatown Historic District
ACHP: Honolulu-Chinatown Special Historic District
American Association of Immunologists: How Honolulu’s Chinatown "Went Up in Smoke:" The First Plague Outbreak in Hawai’i, 1899–1900
Condé Nast Traveler: Honolulu's Chinatown Is the Creative Heart of Urban Hawaii
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