Our Roots
We are descendants of emigrants from the sixth and seventh precincts, Kung Doo ( Gongdu) and Sheong Doo ( Changdu), of Guangdong Province in the People’s Republic of China. Many of our ancestors came to the islands to earn money for their families during extreme economic and political upheaval, famine, drought, and pandemic disease in the Guangdong region. Their sacrifices and struggles in a new world made our abundance and prosperity possible, and we honor and remember them.
This is a map of our area in the southeastern coastal region of China, as it was in the 1860s. The area in pink is Guangdong (then spelled Kwang Tung).
This region of China supplied most of the immigrants who came to the Kingdom of Hawaii to labor on sugar, pineapple plantations, on the King’s ranches, and as service workers during the 19th and early 20th century.
The hard-earned money that supported their families when the Chinese economy collapsed ended up saving the region from starvation and helped the clans remain in their ancestral villages. The extraordinary contribution of the sons of Guangdong in preserving the families of this region will soon be celebrated in an exhibit that is being created for the beautiful 5-acre Zhuhai Museum in Zhuhai City.
About 75% of the Chinese families living in Hawaii today have their roots in Guangdong province.
The Chinese have been keeping family records since before there was such a thing as China. The villages of Kung Sheong Doo are still home to some of the oldest surname clans in China.
The clan elders in these villages still record the births, marriages, and deaths of clan members. Many of these documents were burned by Chairman Mao during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.
Fortunately, clan members have been working painstakingly to reconstruct and recompile the lost pedigrees. Thanks to their efforts, lost pages and sometimes entire lost volumes have been found. Little by little, clan members inside China and abroad are rejoining our long family history.
Here’s a full map of China in 1865. You can see how proximity to the harbors would have provided Guangdong villagers with access to opportunities for employment on distant shores.