The “California and Hawaii: As Civilization Advances” article states how a man named George Freeth took part in bringing the sport of surfing to California from the South Seas. I was very interested to learn about this man I knew so little about but who has influenced my culture and lifestyle so much. I came to learn that Freeth was the first celebrity to bring surfing to California. It was a predominantly Hawaiian sport at that time and was virtually unknown on the Californian coast. Being from Santa Barbara I really related to this article and was fascinated by the history behind bringing this sport to my hometown.
The author, Michael Scott Moore, alerted his audience to the fact that surfing has become an American export. Moore compared surfing to that of cowboys and Hollywood, a brand in which is used to sell materials and a certain lifestyle. Since surfing has become such a large portion of Californian culture it is very important to learn how exactly this sport got here and why.
Before explaining how Freeth came about though Moore provides some history of the sport and some background of how surfing has influenced the island life in Hawaii. He makes the point that surfing makes up most of Hawaiian culture. Surfing is an ancient tradition in the islands. Old celebrations revolved around the waves and ended with what would now be known as surfing. Surfing was a regular sport in Hawaii and surfers did not see a need to expand or tell others about their lifestyle.
An unknown Hawaiian surfer named George Freeth however would one day take these old traditions and open up many new opportunities for entertainment and eventually create a whole new way of life. In the early 1900s Freeth rose to fame as a "beach boy" in Waikiki. Soon he made his way to California, where people had no concept of swimming in the waves. Freeth then came along and took up surfing their waves. This got a lot of attention and he soon got a job surfing for the tourists along Redondo Beach. Surfing then first started out as a form of entertainment but through other surfers surfing became an international movement. So we have Freeth to thank for bringing such a unique sport to our beaches.
In response to the Freeth's comment about how surfing is similar to "Hollywood Cowboys", I find that this statement holds true even today which is disheartening because it seems as though mainland surfers, surf brands, contest promoters etc. have sort of stolen the culture from Hawaiian's and so many people are ignorant to the fact that surfing had been a huge part of even ancient hawaiian culture.
ReplyDeleteMeadow -
ReplyDeleteDon't forgot about our Hawaiian princes up here in Santa Cruz! In regards to your notions about Hawaiian surfers not seeing 'a need to expand or tell others about their lifestyle', in the film we screened last week, White Wash ('11), Sam George made the comment that for indigenous Hawaiians surfing was something they did, but it was not something that necessarily embodied their identity - or more simply, they surfed, but didn't consider themselves surfers. This distinction, as a lifestyle, as something separate, something eventually aligned with a nuanced counter-culture, doesn't develop until surfing became more established here in California, because as you've noted, surfing was so prominent in Hawaiian culture that any demarcation of a separate culture based explicitly around surfing would've been impossible to delineate from the Hawaiian culture at large.