UC Irvine

This dissertation inquires as to why and how certain immigrants that come to Hawaiʻi achieve upward economic and social mobility, while others do not. This research begins with a historical analysis of some of the first immigrant groups to arrive in Hawaiʻi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of these immigrants worked as low-wage agricultural workers in Hawaii’s emerging plantation economy. This research finds that institutions in the 20th century were used differently by immigrant groups, and that racial hierarchies found on the plantation contributed to a racialized social structure that provided opportunities for select groups. This research then analyzes the situation of Micronesians who come to Hawaiʻi from the Freely Associated States, to ask why and how they become marginalized in a multi-ethnic place with many immigrants. It is found that their liminal status, as neither U.S. citizens nor undocumented, contributes to the blurred responsibilities between state and federal governments in terms of who should be providing social services. As a result, these migrants quickly become seen as a cost burden to the state and their liminality is exacerbated by the economic and social ideologies brought forth by neoliberalism. This work adds to the immigrant incorporation literature on liminality by showing the limits of a state’s response to support a liminal immigrant group in the absence of federal aid.