Don’t Mistake Local People for Hawaiians
Only people of Hawaiian descent can be referred to as “Hawaiians”. However, people who live in Hawaii, but do not have Hawaiian lineage are most commonly referred to as local people or “kamaaina”, which means “offspring of the land”. You would refer them to these titles whether they were raised in the tropical state or not.
However, if you’re discussing anything related to Hawaii’s native culture, you can suggest that it is Hawaiian, like the leis or the dances. Hawaii was established about 800 years ago with the settling of the Polynesians from the Society Islands. The native Hawaiians are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.