The Alondra Park Hoolaulea Festival in Lawndale, Calif., attracts thousands each year. (Christine Hitt/SFGATE)

Under the hot July sun, thousands of people gather to watch hula performed on stage. Long lines form in front of rows of pop-up tents, where vendors are selling Spam musubi, malasadas, T-shirts with the "808" area code, Hawaiian jewelry and flowery sarongs. It's a scene that could be pulled straight from Hawaii, but it's at Alondra Park in Lawndale, a community in Los Angeles' South Bay.

The 44-year-old Alondra Park Hoolaulea Festival is the largest Hawaiian cultural festival in LA. Drawing around 40,000 to 50,000 people every year, the two-day tradition is a reminder of home for a growing community of Native Hawaiians living in Southern California, about 2,500 miles away from the Islands.

Across the Pacific Ocean, California is the No. 1 state Hawaii residents are moving to, and of all the counties, Los Angeles has the largest concentration of Native Hawaiians in the state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Native Hawaiians who live in and around LA are a mixture of people born in Hawaii or outside of Hawaii. Some were raised in Hawaii, and some have never even seen the Islands. The range of backgrounds reveals the varying identity struggles faced by Native Hawaiians living in the diaspora.

Ipo Alkhaldi founded Hawaiian Diaspora to help connect Hawaiians living outside of Hawaii. (Ipo Alkhaldi)

"I think the appeal with Southern California specifically is that it's still very much a cultural stronghold for diasporic Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, meaning that there are so many of them," Ipo Alkhaldi told SFGATE. Born in Hawaii, Alkhaldi grew up in San Diego, lived in LA in her 20s and is now in Seattle. She is the executive director of Hawaiian Diaspora, an organization that not only connects Hawaiians in the diaspora but also studies it.

"You still have cultural longing of course, but [in Los Angeles], you can still have access to a hula school, to aloha festivals, and you're one direct flight away. You're still very much living a lot of what could be considered like a Hawaii-adjacent life, and that makes things a little bit easier," Alkhaldi said.

In 2020, for the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau showed that more than half of Native Hawaiians live in the continental U.S. In California, Los Angeles County had the largest Native Hawaiian population at 15,983. By comparison, San Diego County had a Native Hawaiian population of 10,965, and Sacramento County had a Native Hawaiian population of 5,378.

At the Alondra Park Hoolaulea Festival in Lawndale, halau hula (hula schools) take turns performing on stage. (Daniel Alarcon)

The Alondra Park Hoolaulea Festival is filled with vendors selling various products, including T-Shirts by Kainoa Kreationz that refer to the Hawaii-LA connection. (Christine Hitt/SFGATE)

The Heritage of Aloha Festival in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., brings together Hawaiians living in Southern California. (Christine Hitt/SFGATE)

"You see that there are pockets in different cities that are probably more popular," Heather Heleloa, a 42-year-old Native Hawaiian and Orange County resident, told SFGATE. She sees these Hawaiian pockets specifically around Lawndale, Long Beach, Torrance and Gardena in the southwestern corner of Los Angeles County along the coast. In Orange County, she said the pockets are concentrated around Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

Heleloa, a first-generation Native Hawaiian born in the continental U.S., founded Heleloa.com, an online hub for Pacific Islanders in Southern California who are looking for scholarships and festival information. She's also the secretary for Ahahui o Liliuokalani, the oldest Hawaiian civic club in the continental U.S. that was founded in 1976 and is currently based in LA County.

"The fact that we've got a large community that seems to be really active with one another, even concerts that have Sammy Johnson or Josh Tatofi or Common Kings coming and playing - there's clearly a large enough interested group where you can still feel like you're surrounded by your community, even when you're away from home," she said.

Christen Marquez plays the Ipu inside her apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

Native Hawaiians leave Hawaii for different personal reasons: The high cost of living, expensive housing prices and limited schools and job opportunities are common reasons for moving. In Heleloa's case, she said her Hawaii-born parents wanted her to pursue an education in California.

Of course, in LA, the cost of living is also high, and housing prices are comparable to Hawaii. Some move anyway, choosing to be closer to relatives and friends. The Hawaiian community in Southern California has been established for so long - many moved to LA in the 1960s - that its roots now span generations. The families are growing; babies are being born.

Born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu, Kamaka Brown is a stand-up comic in Southern California. (Kamaka Brown)

"It's definitely generational," 77-year-old Kamaka Brown told SFGATE. He is a stand-up comic, actor and master of ceremonies who works in and around LA.

"If you're going to buy a place, if you're going to rent a place, it's on par [with Hawaii]. So it's not really attractive for families to move here unless they're moving in with family that's already here."

Born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu, Brown moved to California in 1997 to work in telecommunications, then started Sandwich Islands Social Network as a way to bring together Hawaiians in the continental U.S. through media content and live events.

Brown described the migration to LA as beginning in the 1920s with Hawaiian musicians, then largely in the 1960s during an economic boom. "A lot of them came to work in the aerospace industry. They came to work in Boeing, McDonnell Douglas," Brown said. "So lots of people that I know are like second-generation people from Hawaii, you know. Their kids and grandkids are here."

Christen Marquez waters the stems of a Hawaiian Ti plant she cut inside her apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. The Ti plant appears on the right. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

Those close personal connections broaden what it means to be a diasporic Hawaiian. "A lot of people think of the diaspora as displaced, like somebody who is born and raised in Hawaii and then couldn't afford to stay there, so they had to move their family away, and that is true for a lot of circumstances, but it's not a monolith," Alkhaldi said. "There are a lot more circumstances, such as what we are referring to as generational diaspora Hawaiians."

Being Native Hawaiian can mean someone who wasn't born and raised in Hawaii or someone who hasn't even visited Hawaii. Some Hawaiians in these instances struggle with identity, like a cultural imposter syndrome.

"These are kind of like the labels and distinctions that we haven't had before, [and research] is helping us paint a clearer picture about what it means when we say diaspora," Alkhaldi said.

Native Hawaiian filmmaker and LA resident Christen Marquez makes connections between Hawaii's history of colonization and present displacement.

Christen Marquez poses for a portrait with an Ipu inside her apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

Christen Marquez holds up a picture of her mom, Elena, inside her apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

Christen Marquez, left, and her daughter Maka Mah pose for a portrait inside their apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

"Obviously, there were usurpers, and after the overthrow, they put in and installed very intentional displacing types of laws and systems in place," 43-year-old Marquez told SFGATE. Hawaii tourism showcased Hawaii "as a place that was ready for colonization," she added.

Land ownership also shifted out of Hawaiian hands. Sugar and pineapple became leading industries. All of this led some Hawaiians to look elsewhere for an economic alternative and a place to perpetuate a Hawaiian way of life, according to the book "Hawaiians in Los Angeles," written by Elizabeth Nihipali, Lessa Pelayo, Christian Lozada, Cheryl Roberts and Lorelie Olaes. "Hawaii, for Native Hawaiians, became a tragic place to live and a hard place to succeed," they wrote.

Marquez was born in Hawaii, raised in Seattle, spent time living in New York and has now called LA home for the past 17 years. "I'm like half local, you know," she said. "I was like 9 [when I left Hawaii], so I've been on the continent a long time."

Christen Marquez, right, and her daughter Maka Mah read a Hawaiian story inside her apartment in Los Angeles on July 23, 2025. (William Liang/For SFGATE)

She is the co-director of a documentary feature "Lucky We Live Hawaii," which explores Native Hawaiian displacement. The film is slated for completion by the end of the year, and it's expected to run on public television.

Since living in LA, Marquez has had success connecting with Hawaiians at events and festivals, such as the Alondra Park Hoolaulea Festival, and she also works at the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Data Policy Lab at UCLA. "The Hawaiians that I know that come are, you know, writers, directors, filmmaker types," she said, referencing the creative industry she is in. But she, like several others, noted that she's met more intergenerational Hawaiians compared to those who've recently moved to LA.

"I've been really happy here and being closer to Hawaii and having a community," she said. "The pan-Pacific community is strong here, and I really enjoy being able to kind of have solidarity with other Pacific Islanders."

Editor's note: SFGATE recognizes the importance of diacritical marks in the Hawaiian language. We are unable to use them due to the limitations of our publishing platform.

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