Aloha Utah: How Native Hawaiians are building community and keeping culture alive

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Native Hawaiians are increasingly settling in Utah due to affordability issues in Hawaii.
• Community leaders maintain cultural traditions through businesses like Side of Aloha and Budda's Bakery.
• Music and dance projects like the Paʻina Project help preserve Hawaiian culture in Utah.

SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time in history, a majority of native Hawaiians live outside Hawaii, priced out of their home state.

Many are trading the islands for the mountains of Utah, and they brought their aloha with them.

The Hawaiian community in Utah runs deep, with more than 11,000 Native Hawaiians calling Utah home — the fifth largest outside of Hawaii, according to a 2025 "community of contrasts" report by Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, or EPIC.

They didn't just come here to survive. They came here to build.

For Kiel Dela Pena, leaving Waimea on the Big Island came down to one thing:

"My brother was living here and he said, 'Brah, it's cheap. It's cheap — cheaper than home and California?' Sounds like a dream."

So, he and his wife, Nina, brought Hawaii to South Jordan and opened Side of Aloha in 2018.

"We ship in fresh sashimi-grade ahi every Tuesday and Friday," Dela Pena said. "We try to keep as close to the culture as we can." And on Aloha Friday, it's a sweet reminder of home.

"(For) a lot of the Hawaiian community, this is where they come and hang out," he said. "Just feels like a little bit of home when you're up here on the mainland."

Jolene Kanahele Keliiliki, known as Auntie Jo, was baking butter rolls out of her home in Laʻie when demand outgrew her kitchen. So, she made a bold move.

"Baking was getting too overwhelmed, and I was by myself, and so I talked my husband into selling our home," she said.

They opened Budda's Hawaiian Bakery in Pleasant Grove in 2023. In May, they celebrated the opening of a second location in Salt Lake City.

"Anyone that has love in their heart, unconditional love, has a spirit of aloha," Keliiliki said. "And you don't have to be from Hawaii."

'These are our ancestors'

The connection between Hawaiians and Utah goes back to 1889, when Hawaiian members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled Skull Valley and built a community called Iosepa.

"It gives us courage to keep going on when things go hard on us," said Charmagne Wixom, president of the Iosepa Historical Society of Utah. By 1911, Iosepa was considered one of the most progressive towns in Utah. When the church called them home to Hawaii in 1917, they left.

Today, the Iosepa cemetery remains a sacred reminder. The spirit lives on at the Kehaulani Hula studio in West Valley City, and anyone interested in learning more about the culture is welcome.

"I'm trying to teach them what I know from home. All of them are not Hawaiian, but they're Hawaiian at heart, so I need to nurture that and to guide them in the right direction," said studio owner Kumu Pomaika'i Gaui.

But can a tradition this sacred survive thousands of miles from home?

"When I have Hawaiian students who are born and raised in Utah tell me 'Thank you for taking me home' ... and I'm thinking, 'What do you mean?'" he chuckled. "Then they tell me their different perspective. I feel so good about that."

'It's a beautiful thing'

Hawaiian musicians Jason Sadang and Fausto Allosada Jr. left Maui when they could no longer afford to stay. They created the Paʻina Project, connecting Hawaiians through music.

"There's a few things that allow us to feel like we're back home or get that same feeling," Allosada Jr. said. "Food's one of it. Seeing others like us makes us feel the same way. But I think music does it even more so. It takes us to a time and place."

Jason Sadang echoed that sentiment: "The people, the language, the hula, the music — it all ties itself into each other. That's why we do it."

For Kamie Afo Aiono, it's woven into every lei she creates.

She opened Paradise Porch in her South Jordan home in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It has meant so much. I'm going to get teary-eyed," she said. "So, my dad is from the islands and he passed away. Just to continue our traditions, continue the love."

One lei at a time, Utah is learning what Aloha means.

"It's not just a flower. There's a meaning behind every piece of it," she said. "There's a celebration. It's for people to celebrate loved ones, grieve loved ones with lei. It's a beautiful thing."

From the food to the music to the flowers, you no longer need to fly to Hawaii to enjoy the Aloha spirit. This community has found a way to carry home with them.

"It's not the same Hawaii I grew up in. Having the people that I found here, the energy that we're creating, I wouldn't want to leave this movement right now," Allosada Jr. said.

"The feel of being home cannot be duplicated," Gaui said. "For me, the connection is wherever our feet is planted, that's home."

And wherever they've landed, Utah's culture has grown richer for it.

Photos

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

Multicultural UtahLifestyleUpliftingUtah
Tamara Vaifanua

• 