After decades of whitewashing, sovereignty activists say, the effort is part of an attempt to reclaim the sport’s cultural and spiritual importance in its place of birth.

As surfing made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games on Sunday, Native Hawaiians are hoping the global spotlight on the contest will bring attention to what they call the whitewashing of their national sport and the exploitation of their homeland. 

For the past three years in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics, sovereignty activists from the academic and surfing communities have petitioned the Games to allow surfers who are Hawaiian nationals — anyone who can trace their roots to the Hawaiian Kingdom before its overthrow in 1893 — to compete for the Hawaiian Kingdom instead of the United States. The request is largely an effort to reclaim the sport’s cultural and spiritual importance in the place of its birth. 

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