In 1865, German botanist William Hillebrand travelled to India with the intention of finding “East Indian” labour for the sugar plantations of Hawaii, where he lived and worked. Instead, he returned with plants and birds of breath-taking variety: crows, finches, the Chinese quail, Mongolian pheasants, the Indian sparrow and common mynah. By 1879, the mynah was a familiar species in Honolulu and soon in the other south-eastern islands of Hawaii.For the first South Asians who set foot on the Hawaiian Islands around the early 1880s, the birds must have been a comforting sight. They had sailed...…In 1865, German botanist William Hillebrand travelled to India with the intention of finding “East Indian” labour for the sugar plantations of Hawaii, where he lived and worked. Instead, he returned with plants and birds of breath-taking variety: crows, finches, the Chinese quail, Mongolian pheasants, the Indian sparrow and common mynah. By 1879, the mynah was a familiar species in Honolulu and soon in the other south-eastern islands of Hawaii.For the first South Asians who set foot on the Hawaiian Islands around the early 1880s, the birds must have been a comforting sight. They had sailed...WW…