Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau

In the film, Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau, it shows a less than ideal perspective of American imperialism in hawaii. The movie showed how the United States claimed Hawaii as a state despite their objections, while also ignoring the native people and their traditions and history, so they could gain political control to further their sugarcane plantations. The movie said it was a common idea known around the white colonists that the native culture was too stupid or lazy to create a true government. Despite the American imperialism, Eddie continued to value the hawaiian traditions of strong family relationships and his passion for surfing. Eddie became the first lifeguard ever to patrol Waimea Bay. During this time, many American soldiers visiting the beach on R&R from vietnam, who were drunk and unable to swim, were saved from the rough waters by Eddie despite the political issues of imperialism at the time. This responsibility to save anyone who needed help showed his passion for making sure all people who visited Hawaii could learn to enjoy and cherish the land like he had.  He also experienced imperialism on a much smaller scale during his surfing career. Eddie, and surfers like him were sometimes kept out of newer surfing competitions, due to his older, more traditional hawaiian ways of surfing. It was Eddie's main goal in his surfing career to win the competition hosted at his beach in Waimea Bay, but then a new wave of Australian surfers with newer techniques came to Hawaii and beat Eddie on the waves that he knew best. This could be interpreted as imperialism because it showed a colonial invasion taking down hundreds of years of native surf tradition and then relentlessly insulting their older styles. The furious locals of Hawaii did not respond well to the mocking from the Australians and planned to beat up the surfers. When Eddie heard of this, he protected the Australians, who had made a joke of everything he'd worked so hard to earn, and was the only native who then prevented the attack. This showed his dedication to peace and his native Hawaiian history, while also fighting the ideas of imperialism in his life. As a way to further connect to his cultural Hawaiian history and publicly fight the ideas of imperialism, Eddie trained and joined the crew of the Hokulea, which is a Polynesian canoe that carried the first explorers to Hawaii. Imperialism had tainted these ideas and undermined the ability of the natives, saying that due to poor navigation and construction of the boat they had discovered the Island's by accident. Eddie's goal was to join the crew of the Hokulea and journey to Tahiti and back, using the stars as their only navigation. Unfortunately, the boat hit a large storm about 12 miles off the shore and was flipped over. As a final act of courage for his fellow crew members, he paddles off to shore with the intent to find help, but is never seen again. Eddie died fighting the ideas of imperialism that had emerged in Hawaii so they could no longer diminish the intelligence, culture, or capabilities of his native people.

Opening ceremony at the surf competition in Waimea Bay in memory of Eddie Aikau, where all surfers participating  from across the world join hands in a circle in the water for a Hawaiian blessing to honor Hawaiian culture,