Saturday, April 14, 2012

Pacific Islander America: Kalama, Washington

Last week we linked to an article in Spokane, Washington's local paper, regarding that city's growing Marshallese community.  


Having done so, I'd be remiss if I didn't do a short post on another smaller city in Washington State, which belongs in our "Pacific Islander American" posts: The City of Kalama.  


According to information from each city's municipal website, the City of Kalama was named after pioneer John Kalama, a Native Hawaiian frontiersman who left Hawaii in the early 1800s for the Pacific Northwest. John Kalama was not the only Pacific Islander to leave his homelands for that area -- modern-day Washington State, Oregon, and British Columbia have been home to Pacific Islanders for roughly two centuries. We blogged a bit more on that, and on other Pacific Northwest cities and landmarks with Hawaiian-language names, here: LINK  


Kalama is also credited as the town in which part of the hit movie Twilight was filmed.

To read the City of Kalama's webpage regarding the origin of their name: LINK

Kawika
(Mahalo to Chris, a P.I.A. project blog-reader and friend who first told me about Kalama, Washington!)

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