During the sugar boom that took place around 1850, Oahu's plantation owners started to recruit and exploit cheap, hard-working laborers from overseas. They contracted people from Japan, China, Korea, Portugal, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, as well indigenous Hawaiian islanders, all of whom contributed to Oahu's current ethnic mix.

Hawaii's Plantation Village is a re-creation of the way plantation life used to be in the early 20th century. It also provides an insight on how such diverse cultures learned to co-exist during the century that sugar was Oahu's economic backbone. The village comprises several dozen homes and other buildings, furnished with period pieces, such as a Japanese shrine and workers' tools of the trade. The site occupies 20 hectares (50 acres) in the former sugar-processing town of Waipahu.

Southwest of the village is 10.5 km (6.5 miles) of restored railroad track that belongs to the Hawaiian Railway. The tracks are an icon from the plantation era. In the beginning of the 20th century, the Oahu Railway & Land Company transported sugarcane and passengers from Honolulu to Kahuku on the island's northern shore. The stretch that remains lies between Ewa and Nanakuli and the trains only transport tourists nowadays.

Hawaii's Plantation Village is west of Pearl Harbor, some 18 km northwest of Honolulu.