WL Rating
It’s rare, in my chosen genre of surfing book reviews, to find a book that is controversial. After all, most of the books I review are full of nice pictures and stories about surfing. Very soft stuff. Isaiah Walker’s new book Waves of Resistance, however, is something else entirely. Walker is a surfer and Hawaiian academic from Oahu’s BYU campus. In his book, he pulls no punches as he outlines an argument that native Hawaiians have for over 100 years successfully used the surf zone as a forum for fighting colonial oppression. Walker starts with a dry summary of Hawaii’s early surfing history, and then pushes into the period of early Western contact, the missionary invasion/exploitation, and finally the creation of the Hui O He’e Nalu (aka black shorts). In each phase, Walker demonstrates how Hawaiians overcame subjugation through active control of the surf zone. Some folks will read this book and label it as a racist rant against white people. Others will find themselves agreeing and empathizing with Walker’s arguments that Hawaiians have had a very raw deal. My perspective is that Waves of Resistance is a well-researched and argued book, even if its thesis is slightly undermined by some apparent bias. Frankly, my largest issue with this book is the academic nature of the presentation,which makes it tough for anyone who was looking for an easy read. If you are interested in some unvarnished Hawaiian history and one of the more interesting summaries of the black shorts, this is a good book. It’s also a solid primer for gaining a deeper understanding of the modern local perspective on haole incursions into the North Shore surf zone. (February 2012)
