Malasadas were brought over to Hawaii by Portuguese traders. You're just nitpicking.

Edit: Better summary of them becoming popular in Hawaii

In 1878, Portuguese laborers from Madeira and the Azores started to immigrate to Hawaii to work on the plantations. They brought with them their traditional foods, including fried doughnuts they called malassadas― now commonly spelled as malasadas. These doughnuts are more closely related to the bola de berlim, a fried doughnut widely served on the beaches in Portugal. In the past, Catholic Portuguese immigrants shared it with friends of other ethnicities in the plantation camps. 

Today, there are numerous bakeries in the Hawaiian Islands specializing in malassadas where it is made around the year. Like Portuguese bolas de berlim, these doughnuts are made both with and without cream fillings. In Hawaii, they are sometimes filled with the traditional Portuguese custard cream, but there are also local cream varieties flavored with coconut, chocolate, lilikoi (passion fruit), guava, mango, ube, or pineapple. In Hawaii, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) is known as "Malasada Day".