Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a professor and Hawaii native, explained the role that surfing played in the colonization of Hawaii to the BYU community on Oct. 24.
Walker is the current Academic Vice President of BYU—Hawaii and is also a professor of history. He appeared in multiple surfing documentaries and published work about the history of Hawaii and its culture.
The presentation at the Kennedy Center focused on his book "Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawaii." Walker shared why this project was important to him to publish and walked through some of his process with students and faculty of BYU.
Walker said that the book talks about surfing, but is “mostly about people.” He felt the need to contribute to the narrative of surfing in Hawaii because how people were talking about it did not feel accurate to him as a Hawaiian native.
Walker began the lecture by introducing some important concepts in Hawaiian culture. This included how Hawaiian culture views the ocean in comparison to land and the identity of Hawaiians through colonization.
The surf zone, or the part of the ocean where surfers spent their time, was referred to as the “ka po’ina nalu” and was a place of refuge and sanctuary where surfers could get in touch with ancestors, heal and have the “ability to find a bit of who you are,” Walker said.
Marc Yamada, a BYU professor of comparative arts and letters, hosted the presentation. He found the distinction between land and ocean intriguing.
“I really liked how he talked about the ocean being a place, like an area, in which local Hawaiian people have been able to kind of be empowered and to express their culture and to have a certain kind of continuity of culture,” Yamada said.
The Hawaiian surf zone gave natives “freedom to defy colonial prescriptions of how Hawaiian men should behave” and represented Hawaiian autonomy, Walker said.
Professional surfing and the tourism industry intruded into that safe space. Some historical narratives of surfing claim that surfing went extinct in Hawaiian culture.
Walker refuted and disproved this claim with his research. He read oral histories of Hawaii and digitized Hawaiian newspapers to prove that surfing had been a thriving part of Hawaiian culture through supposed years of extinction.
Walker explained that it was important during his research to “represent voices properly” and take the trust that people gave him seriously. It was essential to have a vision and then ground it in scholarly research, Walker said.
Perspective and understanding the context of the space that you are studying is impactful, Walker said.
Walker closed his remarks by referencing several professional surfers who represent Hawaiian culture with pride and “carry tradition on.” Walker highlighted examples of ceremonies that some competitions include that “brought cultural identity back into competitive practice.”
Students and faculty in the audience had the opportunity to ask Walker questions. Angela Morales, a previous student of BYU-Hawaii, attended the presentation and hopes that many people can learn about the culture of Hawaii.
“It’s more than just tourism,” Morales said. “There's a lot of culture in Hawaii that I think a lot of the people in the world would benefit from.”
Morales described the “Aloha spirit” as something similar to the spirit of Christmas.
“That's the closest we could integrate it with, which is a spirit of loving, a spirit of giving, forgiveness,” Morales said.
Ideas in Walker’s presentation relate to a lecture series that the Kennedy Center hosted called “Legacies of Colonialism” that explores the effects of colonialism. Yamada believes that these kinds of lectures provide an invaluable perspective.
“It's important to really gain an understanding of those around us and how they're not the same as us,” Yamada said. “How they have different histories and how they struggle and suffer, and yet at the same time, we're all kind of similar.”