Benjamin Jerome Cayetano is an American politician and author who served as the fifth governor of the State of Hawaii from 1994 to 2002. He is the first Filipino American to serve as a state governor in the United States.

Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos in North America were first documented in the 16th century and other small settlements beginning in the 18th century. Mass migration did not begin until after the end of the Spanish–American War at the end of the 19th century, when the Philippines was ceded from Spain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris.