HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Pursuing the American dream is not easy, especially if you’re an immigrant.

In HNN’s series “Immigration in Hawaii,” we look at how the Lahaina wildfire shed light on an invisible but fast growing immigrant community.

Dania L. was 5 years old when her parents moved them to Lahaina 20 years ago.

“We left Mexico because we’re severely struggling. We came here for a better life,” said the Lahaina resident. “Hawaii is like a place where we’ve been welcome. You know, local people here know our struggles, and a lot of people know where we’re coming from, and they help us and they provide jobs for us.”

Dania is in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or DACA, which allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to work legally for 2-year periods. She pays taxes but doesn’t receive benefits.

So when her family lost their home and jobs in the August wildfire, Dania said they struggled to access housing, food and healthcare. Their immigration status made it even more challenging.

And they weren’t the only ones.

Nonprofit Roots Reborn was started after the fires to help residents displaced by the disaster. Its executive director says they’ve worked with about 700 immigrant households impacted by the fires and has new data that reveals details about a population that’s long been invisible, yet critical to Maui’s economy — working in restaurants, hotels, agriculture and construction.

“A lot of this we know firsthand, through lived experience, but it’s nice to be able to prove this with real data, and be able to offer this to individuals who again are making really important decisions about the recovery,” said co-founder and executive director Veronica Jachowski.

Data shows many are single young people and families with young children. English is not their primary language and many have less than a high school education.

Those who come to Hawaii, come to stay — usually to be with family already here.

“Confirming and informing what that immigrant experience is like, and what their major barriers are, so that we can adjust how we provide services to them, so that it’s intentional, that it’s human centered, that it’s dignified,” Jachowski said.

And it’s not just newly arrived immigrants.

“This started all the way to Kamehameha, King Kamehameha, right, when the first paniolos came.” said Ruben Juarez, an economics professor at UH Manoa and Mexican immigrant.

UHERO says Hispanics make up more than 11% of Hawaii’s population — and will grow to 15% by 2040 — the state’s fastest-growing ethnic group.

They come as professionals and service workers. About one in five active duty military members is Hispanic.

A third are from Mexico, another third from Puerto Rico and the remaining from Latin America.

That means a greater need for resources, like legal services and healthcare, especially after the fires.

Juarez is co-leading a Maui Wildfire Exposure Study, which tracks the social and medical impact of individuals affected by the Maui wildfires last August.

“In terms of health insurance, pre-wildfires 5% of the population just didn’t have health insurance. Post-wildfire, we’re seeing that about 10% for the entire people affected in our cohort. For Hispanics it’s 38%. So more than one in three individuals just doesn’t have health insurance, and they don’t qualify for health insurance. So what we’re seeing is that they are unable to access care. And of course, because they’re unable to access care, better than the most likely to experience long term health complications of this. … If we don’t take care of them right now, we may see some pretty severe consequences in the future.”

Juarez suggests “incorporating them into those typical systems and make the system more accessible for them, such as in Spanish or some other cultural friendly ways.”

A Mexican government official says the Maui fires revealed at least 60,000 Mexican nationals are living in Hawaii, more than originally estimated. There is currently no Mexican consulate in the state, so officials are working to increase its presence.

“We need to have representation here. We saw this is necessary, very necessary,” said deputy consul general Vicente Sanchez Ventura from the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco.

Outreach will be a challenge, advocates say, because the community is fragmented and less likely to trust government.

Tensions over illegal immigration also breed fear, but those on the frontlines hope humanizing the issue will help.

“Our intention was never to break the law,” said Dania, who said she understands why so many feel strongly about the issue. “Our intentions were never to hurt this country. Our intentions are just to be to provide better opportunities, a better life for our families.”

For information about the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study, click here.

To see statistics from Roots Reborn’s study, click here.

Watch more episodes in HNN’s series “Immigration in Hawaii.”

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