#Surfing and hiatory in Twenth-Century Hawai'i

[studyabroadsurf]

Intro to Surfing (in Hawai’i)

I have been provided with many different texts about surfing that range from Costa Rica to southern North America. Personally, when I think of surfing, my mind leads me to Hawai’i, huge waves and gorgeous beaches. Every beach, every community, has their own culture and daily traditions. I’ll be starting in Hawai’i using Isaiah Helekunihi Walker’s Waves of Resistance. The book starts off with an introduction to the importance of surfing and preserving the history to the Native Hawiian people. 

The ancedote Walker uses it that of the 1976 surf competion held in Hawai’i. A group of Native Hawaiians nicknaked Hui O He’e Nalu, or Hui gathered in hopes to preserve Native Hawaiin control over a a beach called North Shore. This area had been a precious surfing location for native Hawaiins and had been “colonized” and “exploited” by the surfing industry. 

A wade-in had been planned for the evening of the competition to protest the use of the land. Unfortunetly, the wade-in ended in violence and eventually caused quiet tension but made no actual immediate change, as things like this usually go. However, eventually the industry and the locals began a conversation. This conversation lead to the decrease in compitetions held in this area, along with providing employment to Hui members. 

Walker notes that this is not the first time Native Hawaiians had to protest, organise or fight to preserve surfing but does argue that this instint was distict to the Hawaiians’ cause by opting for a “cultural rediscovery and restoration.”

“On land, many Hawaiians were marginalized from political, social, and economic spheres during much of the twentiesth century. Yet in the ocean Native surfers secured a position atop a social hierarchy.”