The Battle for Paradise

Abstract

The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku DAVID DAVIS THE oRIgInAl "HumAn FISH" AnD THE FATHER oF moDERn SuRFIng Waterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman. Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America's first superstar Olympic swimmer. The original "human fish" set dozens of world records and topped the world rankings for more than a decade; his rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller transformed competitive swimming from an insignificant sideshow into a headliner event. Kahanamoku used his Olympic renown to introduce the sport of "surfriding," an activity unknown beyond the Hawaiian Islands, to the world. Standing proudly on his traditional wooden longboard, he spread surfing from Australia to the Hollywood crowd in California to New Jersey. No American athlete has influenced two sports as profoundly as Kahanamoku did, and yet he remains an enigmatic and underappreciated figure: a darkskinned Pacific Islander who encountered and overcame racism and ignorance long before the likes of Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson. Kahanamoku's connection to his homeland was equally important. He was born when Hawaii was an independent kingdom; he served as the sheriff of Honolulu during Pearl Harbor and World War II and as a globetrotting "Ambassador of Aloha" afterward; he died not long after Hawaii attained statehood. As one sportswriter put it, Duke was "Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey combined down here." In Waterman, award-winning journalist David Davis examines the remarkable life of Duke Kahanamoku, in and out of the water.

“Foreign Locals”: Transnationalism, Expatriates, and Surfer Identity in Costa Rica

“…Each community has its own history which makes it unique, and Pavones is no exception. Costa Rican migration, foreign involvement, labor unions, violent armed conflict, and a remote location have shaped Pavones into a unique community with a different trajectory than surf destinations in other parts of the country (Evans, 2015; Usher & Gómez, 2016).…”

“…Much of the following history has been documented in a recent book (Evans, 2015); however, multiple participants described these events throughout my study as well. Prior to Tico cattle farmers from the northern province of Guanacaste arriving to Pavones in the 1960s, the only people in the area were the indigenous Guaymí people, who primarily resided in the mountains (Evans, 2015). Therefore, mestizo (Central Americans who have Spanish and indigenous heritage) Ticos had not lived in the area for very long.…”

“…Ticos recounted how a few American surfers had come to visit in the late-1960s and early-1970s, but the first one to make an impact was Danny Fowlie. Fowlie, an American, came to Pavones in 1976 and bought around 85% of the land in the area (Evans, 2015; Goodier, 2005). He bought the land primarily because of the wave, but he employed hundreds of people in the area as well.…”

“…He built a school, medical clinic, church, roads, bridges, houses, and hired agronomists to reforest the area. Fowlie also brought well-renowned surfers from Hawaii and the U.S. mainland to surf the wave at Pavones (Evans, 2015). His arrest for drug trafficking and hasty exit from Costa Rica in the early 1980s set off several decades of land disputes and over a decade of armed conflict between foreigners and Costa Rican squatters from Golfito (Evans, 2015).…”

“…Pavones (the wave) is considered one of the longest, left-breaking waves in the world (Surfline, 2013; World Surfing Collective, 2012). The wave has drawn foreigners from the United States, Europe, and other countries, to live in the area since the mid-1970s (Evans, 2015). If foreigners consider themselves to be local surfers, this may carry certain implications based on previous studies.…”