Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 12, 1 December 1987 — Facts and Figures [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Facts and Figures

By Gordan Frazier ^

Hawaiian Businesses

ln 1984, when the Office of Hawaiian Affairs conducted a statewide survey of Hawaiians, one of the questions asked was "How would you define self-sufficiency?" Of the Hawaiians who answered this question, 82 percent said self-sufficiency was being independent and able to take care of oneself and family. Another two percent said self-sufficiency was owning your own business. These definitions of self-sufficiency are being fulfilled by Hawaiians across the country who own their own business.

As the Census Bureau discovered in 1982, 3,305 businesses in the United States are owned by Hawaiians. As might be expected, the majority of these businesses are located in Hawaii, where 2,077 businesses are Hawaiian owned. Sixty-one percent (1,274) of Hawaiian owned businesses in Hawaii are located on Oahu — not surprising since the majority of all busi nesses in the State are on Oahu. These figures, recently released in a census bureau report titled "1982 Survey of Minority-Owned Business Enterprises", are based on businesses that file IRS forms and include sole propri etors, partnerships, and corporations.

The census report listed the number of Hawaiians nationally who own various types of businesses. However, it did not provide this detailed information for the State. Still, since most of the nation's Hawaiian businesses are in Hawaii, the national figures are indicative of the types of businesses owned by Hawaiians in the State. An estimate of the percent and number of various , types of businesses in Hawaii owned by Hawaiians is given in the table and figure titled, "Hawaiian-Owned Businesses." These figures are based on a combination of the national and state data presented in the census report.

Services and trade are the two most eommon types of businesses owned by Hawaiians. Services include: personal such as beauty shops, lodging, and repair and business services such as advertising, mailing, eomputer and data processing, motion picture and recreational business. Also included under services are health, legal, educational, and social. Trade services include both wholesale and retail trade. These services include automobile manufacturing and sales, the making and selling of building materials and furnishings, construction, clothing manufacturing and sales and food packaging and sales.

While the Cenus Bureau figures are probably a good representation of Hawaiian owned businesses, they do not account for all the ways Hawaiians have of making money and supporting their families. For example fishermen, farmers, lei makers and lauhala weavers may sell their products to help support their families but may not be registered as a business. With this in mind we ean look at the census figures as the minimum number of businesses owned by Hawaiians, knowing that there are many more Hawaiian entrepreneurs achieving their dream of self-sufficiency.