Nearly 1 in 10 Hawaii residents identifies as Hispanic, an increase of 38 percent over the last decade, and some observers expect the group to attract more attention this year as political campaigns heat up.

"In my opinion, 2012 will be the year of the Latino in Hawaii," said Jose Villa, publisher of Hawaii Hispanic News, who is urging Hispanics to run for office.

"The political campaigns have already started, and several races are going to be very, very close. Now that the Latino community is 9 percent of the population, elected officials and candidates can no longer ignore it. There’s this huge community that’s building."

Most Hispanics in Hawaii — 89 percent — were born in the United States and are scattered throughout the islands, census data show, so they might go unnoticed. Often, they came to Hawaii for work and chose to settle for the long term, in part because the local culture reflects their heritage with its personal warmth, emphasis on extended family and respect for elders, Villa said.

They tend to fit easily into Hawaii’s multi-ethnic fabric.

"In a lot of mainland cities, you have these different neighborhoods — the Puerto Ricans over here, the Dominicans over here, the Mexicans over there," said Villa, director of Latin Business Hawaii. "Here in Hawaii we don’t have any of those barrios. Everyone lives where they can afford to live. So what happens here is that we can approach everything on a pan-Hispanic basis."

Hawaii’s Hispanic heritage dates back a long way. A Spanish adventurer is credited with planting the first pineapple in the islands in 1813, and two decades later Mexican cowboys were brought in to round up wild cattle, launching the tradition of Hawaiian paniolo and their guitars. Puerto Ricans began migrating here in the 1900s to work on sugar plantations, and their music and delicacies, such as pasteles, are staples of local life.

Still, the recent growth in the Latino community is notable. Statewide, 120,841 people identified themselves as Hispanic on the 2010 census, up from 87,693 in 2000, when they made up 7 percent of Hawaii residents. Maui has the fastest-growing Hispanic population, up 58 percent from the previous decade, to 14,960. The increase was similar on the island of Hawaii, which counted 21,383 Hispanic residents, a 52 percent jump in 10 years. The overall state population grew 12 percent over that decade.

One of Hawaii’s new Hispanic immigrants, Erika Alexander, moved to Honolulu six years ago from San Antonio for her job. "Now I will never leave," she said with a smile as she filled her basket with ingredients for enchiladas at Mercado de la Raza, the Latin American market. Even with an increase in the local census of Latinos, there are far fewer here than on the mainland.

"I grew up in Texas, where there’s Hispanics everywhere you turn," Alexander said. "I hardly run into any Hispanics in Hawaii. I’m the token Mexican that cooks the food for my friends."

The shop’s proprietor, Martha Sanchez Romero, believes the census data overstate the Hispanic population in Hawaii.

"Something I’ve noticed is that it’s fashionable to be Hispanic," said Sanchez Romero, adding that her son is half Korean and half Mexican and identifies as Mexican. Her store, a fixture on Beretania Street for decades, saw an influx of Mexicans in recent years, she said, but that has dropped over the last year. "A lot of my Mexican customers have gone," she said. "They left because there was no construction."

Hawaii’s Hispanics hail originally from the Iberian Peninsula and a variety of countries in Latin America, from the Caribbean all the way south to Chile. The two largest groups are of Puerto Rican descent (36 percent) and Mexican descent (29 percent), while most of the rest simply checked the box "other Hispanic" in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Grissel Benitez-Hodge, dean of students at Chaminade University, arrived from the East Coast nearly a decade ago.

"The number of Hispanic students at Chaminade in the 10 years I’ve been here has really escalated," Benitez-Hodge said. "Most are bilingual. They’re very vibrant and very involved. They identify strongly with their language and culture. They feel really comfortable here. They just blend into the community. We have a good retention rate of these students."

Carlos David Hernandez moved to Maui from California two decades ago on a three-month contract to work for Wailuku Agribusiness. He found the tropical, relaxed lifestyle reminiscent of his home country of Guatemala and soon put down roots.

"Most of us came with a contract for three months," Hernandez said. "When the three months ended, we have already found our home, and we said we’re not going back."

Hernandez helps knit together Maui’s Hispanic population through his Spanish-language radio show, launched as a one-hour program in 1995. It now airs from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturdays on KNUI 900 AM, with a mix of music, from salsa to merengue, along with interviews. Listeners call in from as far as Waimea, Hilo and Waimanalo.

Active in the local community, Hernandez is helping raise money to build Heritage Hall, a joint project of the Maui Puerto Rican Association and the Portuguese Association of Maui. He learned English by watching "Wheel of Fortune," reading the Maui News and talking with people, he said.

He sees a growing need for Spanish-language interpreting in government services and hospitals nowadays, adding that in Hawaii it is common to have translation available in "every language but Spanish." Businesses are already shifting with the trend, he said.

"Most of the stores now have Spanish-speaking people because they know about how the population has been growing," Hernandez said. "It’s not a surprise anymore, not like when we came in 1991 and nobody spoke Spanish over here."

Some government agencies are beginning to recognize the need. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently brought in Spanish speakers to help with community outreach, Villa said. In January the Occupational Health and Safety Administration will hold Spanish-language workshops on Maui to help workers understand their health and safety rights and to help prevent accidents on the job, he added.

Hawaii’s Catholic Diocese, too, has seen an increased demand for Spanish-language services. In April it welcomed two young priests from Colombia to minister to Hispanics, and now four priests serve Spanish-speaking parishioners in Hilo, Kona, Maui and Oahu.

Father John Quintero, parish administrator for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Kalihi, said attendance soared at Spanish-language services during his five years in Kona, before he moved to Oahu six months ago.

"I started having only one Mass every Sunday at 6 p.m., but last year we opened another Mass in the morning at 10 a.m. and now in Kona there are two Masses because the population is big," Quintero said. "I was having every Sunday 300 to 350 people attending Mass in Kona. During the harvest of coffee, more people come, sometimes 500."

The military presence also helps boost the number of Latinos in Hawaii. About 7 percent of Hispanics here are in the armed forces, nearly twice the rate of the overall population.

Hispanics in Hawaii are relatively young, with a median age of 25 compared with 38 for the state as a whole. Close to 9 out of 10 Hispanics age 25 and older have at least a high school diploma, roughly the same rate as the population as a whole, although fewer have bachelor’s degrees. They are in all walks of life.

"We have everything," Villa said. "We have the wait staff and we have the Ph.D.s. … We need to get some Latinos and Latinas in the state Legislature."