Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau

         Eddie Aikau is shown and known as a legend. Not just for his surfing, but his ability to help others, and live the life that a natural born Hawaii native should. The film told us if we had not already know that surfing originates to way back in Hawaii, before water toys, or any other kind of water sport was really even a thing. Surfing is a Hawaiian tradition, but to other places, it is just another sport. Surfing for the Hawaiians gives them this type of empowerment of race, and connection with the ocean. It allows them to feel power in who they are and where they came from, even if America took over them, and made them American. Surfing makes Hawaiians feel like they are at home, with the ocean, it makes them feel like no matter who is in control of them, and no matter what nation stamps their name on them, that surfing is something that will make them feel more traditional and more Hawaiian than anything on the planet. The film even told us that Americans and Australians would come to Hawaii for these surf competitions, and Hawaiians were not even allowed to surf in the competition. Having a competition held at the place where the sport was originated from, and to not even let the people native to that country participate, is insane. This film shows Eddie and his struggle to show and display the connection and want he has to live like his ancestors. He surfs on the biggest wave beaches, lifeguards at those beaches, and even went out to sail with ten others, on the old ship that the native Hawaiians sailed on to Tahiti and back with only the stars, the sun, and the waves to guide them. Eddie finds every way he can to live and celebrate who and where he came from, and that is so respective of him. I think that the perspective shown on this film is a brutally honest and true perspective. It shows and tells people what the people who lived in these places imperialized by America felt. It shows how their culture was stripped of them, and how they had to conform to be just how the US wanted them to be. It shows how other nations took what they liked about the Hawaiian culture, and disposed of the native and historic culture. It is so sad to see how these people's lifestyle was taken and thrown away, with only this other type of life left for them, given by America. It makes people feel bad and sorry about the imperializing that the Americas did.

This picture is a collage of Eddie, and the cultural things he loved to do, that reminded him of his Hawaiian ancestors.