Empire in Waves. Scott Laderman

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      BERKELEYLOSANGELESLONDON

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Laderman, Scott, 1971–

      Empire in waves : a political history of surfing / Scott Laderman.

      p. cm. — (Sport in the world ; 1)

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27910-0 (hardcover: alk.paper)—ISBN 978-0-520-27911-7 (pbk.:alk.paper)

      eISBN 9780520958043

      1. Surfing—History. 2. Surfing—Political aspects. I. Title.

      GV840.S8L33 2014

      797.3'2–dc23

      2013032583

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      23222120191817161514

      10987654321

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      For Izzy and Sam

      CONTENTS

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction: A Political History of Surfing

      1·How Surfing Became American: The Imperial Roots of Modern Surf Culture

      2·A World Made Safe for Discovery: Travel, Cultural Diplomacy, and the Politics of Surf Exploration

      3·Paradise Found: The Discovery of Indonesia and the Surfing Imagination

      4·When Surfing Discovered It Was Political: Confronting South African Apartheid

      5·Industrial Surfing: The Commodification of Experience

      Epilogue: A New Millennium

      Notes

      Index

      Acknowledgments

      I had the privilege of growing up near the beach in California. I learned to surf in Santa Monica, where I was born, and spent countless hours chasing waves up and down the coast. After high school I moved north, enjoying a couple of years in Santa Cruz before leaving for the Bay Area, where I spent much of my free time surfing at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I now live about as far from the ocean as one can live in the United States. Yet I still regularly surf. As ridiculous as it may sound, my adopted hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, enjoys probably the best waves in the Midwest. It may be colder, less consistent, and smaller than California, but I still find the pleasure and solace in Lake Superior that I found in my younger years in the Pacific. Surfing, in other words, has been important to me for the better part of my life. As has history. I first consciously began to conceptualize Empire in Waves in 1993, when, as a university student, I spent the summer as an editorial intern at Orange County–based Surfer magazine. It was a tough commute from L.A., particularly when waiting tables at night, but what an experience. I worked with great people, joined the editors for periodic surf breaks, and claimed my first publication—a brief article on a Pearl Jam benefit for Aaron Ahearn, a young surfer and sailor in the U.S. Navy who was disciplined for going AWOL and blowing the whistle on the Navy’s practice of dumping garbage offshore. I was also, at that time, becoming increasingly active in human rights issues. I soon found myself presented with an intellectual conundrum. As an activist I knew a fair bit about Indonesia and its occupation of East Timor. As a surfer I knew a lot about Indonesia but nothing about the occupation of East Timor. Why? My attempt to answer that question represents the origins of this book.

      Not many people have the opportunity to make a living by combining their personal and academic interests. I recognize my good fortune and the debt I owe to those many friends and colleagues who made it possible. I want to first thank John Hamlin, Eileen Zeitz, and the University Education Association for their seemingly inexhaustible energy and assistance in trying times. And I thank Sue Maher, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD), for her moral and financial support. I am also indebted for research assistance to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; the Graduate School, the McKnight Arts and Humanities Endowment, and the Imagine Fund of the University of Minnesota; and the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UMD.

      Research for this project has required the use of sources that are not the typical fare of historians, and numerous people helped me locate and access them in recent years. I am grateful to Barry Haun, Becky Church, Dick Metz, and Tom Pezman at the Surfing Heritage Foundation (now the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center) in San Clemente, California; Gary Sahagen at the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach, California; and Craig Baird at Surf World in Torquay, Victoria, Australia. Craig was also a generous host during my stay in Torquay, having me over for dinner and taking me out for a much-needed surf. Al Hunt has perhaps the world’s largest collection of Surfing magazines, and he generously provided me with access to his extensive archive. Al and his wife Andrea also invited me into their home in New South Wales, where they introduced me

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