The largest ethnic subgroups of Pacific Islander Americans are Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and Chamorros.

American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are insular areas (US territories), while Hawaii is a state.

Migration from Oceania to the United States began in the last decade of the 18th century, but the first migrants to arrive in the country were Native Hawaiians.

People from other Oceanian backgrounds (except Australians and Māori) did not migrate to the United States until the late 19th century.

They were hired by British fur traders in Hawaii and taken to the Northwestern US, from where trade networks developed with Honolulu.

The first Native Hawaiians to live permanently in the US settled in the Astoria colony (in present-day Oregon) in 1811, having been brought there by its founder, fur merchant John Jacob Astor.

Astor created the Pacific Fur Company in the colony and used the Native Hawaiians to build the city's infrastructure and houses and to develop the primary sector (agriculture, hunting and fishing).

[4] Since 1819, some groups of Polynesian Protestant students immigrated to the United States to study theology.

[5] Since the 1830s, another group of Native Hawaiians arrived on California's shores,[5][4] where they were traders and formed communities.

[4] In 1889, the first Polynesian Mormon colony was founded in Utah and consisted of Native Hawaiians, Tahitians, Samoans, and Māori.

[5] Also in the late 19th century, small groups of Pacific Islanders, usually sailors, moved to the western shores, mainly on San Francisco.

In the following decades small groups of people from islands such as Hawaii, Guam,[6] Tonga, or American Samoa emigrated to the US.

[12] Shortly thereafter, the first major waves of migration from American Samoa[13][11] and Guam[14] emerged, while other groups of places such as French Polynesia, Palau, or Fiji began to emigrate.

The fact that Hawaii is a US state (meaning that almost the entire native Hawaiian population lives in the US), as well as the migration and high birth rate of the Pacific Islanders have favored the permanence and increase of this population in the US (especially in the number of people who are of partial Pacific Islander descent).

Most of them live in urban areas of Hawaii and California, but they also have sizeable populations in Washington, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and New York.

Due to the Marshall Islands entering the Compact of Free Association in 1986, Marshallese have been allowed to migrate and work in the US.

[31][32][33] Other West Coast metropolitan areas such as Seattle have strong Samoan communities, mainly in King County and in Tacoma.

[12] For this reason, Samoans can move to Hawaii or the mainland US and obtain citizenship comparatively easily.

Like Native Hawaiians, Samoans arrived in the mainland in the 20th century as agricultural laborers and factory workers.

Elsewhere in the US, Samoan Americans are plentiful throughout the state of Utah, as well as in Killeen, Texas; Norfolk, Virginia; and Independence, Missouri.

Many of the first Tongan Americans came to the United States in connection to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[44] American Samoans are distinguished among the wider Pacific Islander group for enthusiasm for enlistment.

[46] Pacific Islander Americans are also represented in the United States Navy SEALs, making up .6% of the enlisted and .1% of the officers.