The Bittersweet Story of Andalusian Migration to Hawaii

Abstract

This article relates the unknown diaspora which forced eight thousand Spanish people to migrate to the cane plantations of Hawaii Islands because of the acute crisis of the sugar cane since the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century.
The story focuses on the first recruitment of workers carried out in Andalusia (1907) and the odyssey that became the sea crossing of the Heliopolis, the ship chosen for transfer to Honolulu.
Broken promises and mistreatment suffered in the plantations caused a new exodus to California, a place that they would later describe as similar to their “beloved Andalusia”.
A tale that underlines the effort and sacrifice of these thousands of Spanish people and that is now starting to be known and valued by their grandsons and great grandsons.