When Debbie Arellano, 37, first saw the smoke, she grabbed what little she could from her studio unit and fled with her 18-month-old baby. As she drove out of Lahaina, Hawaii, praying her mom and cousins weren’t too far behind, she worried about her family’s future — and that of her Filipino community at large. She said she knew that the toll would be disproportionate.
In the weeks since the blaze, she has been bounced around among hotels, she has seen immigrant relatives’ confusion as they struggle to fill out English-only aid forms, and she has watched as her community’s distrust of institutions grows.
Members of the affected Filipino community say they face unique challenges, including the toll of continuing to work in the tourism industry, the inability to access aid because of language and immigration status and financial challenges tied to their multigenerational households.
Filipinos make up about 25% of the population in Hawaii as the second-largest racial group in the state, according to the 2020 census. They make up an even larger share in Lahaina, the town most severely affected by the fires, at 40%, and they constitute a disproportionate segment of the workers in the tourism industry.
And many of their stories still remain in the shadows, they fear. Filipinos are the largest undocumented population in the state, making up 46% of the population.
“We have systems in place to take care of each other,” Arrelano said. “We’ve always taken care of each other.”
With multigenerational families split up, trying to afford individual rentals with money they once pooled with their relatives, Arellano questions the U.S. government’s definition of a household.
“I’ve heard stories of families not being able to find rentals because landlords are not willing to accommodate so much as seven people in a housing unit,” she said. “Immigrant families are having to split up in order to find a rental but are unable to afford the rental…
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