Abstract Carlotta Stewart Lai (1881–1952) is primarily known as Hawai‘i's first African American school principal. This article examines an aspect of Lai's life that has been less appreciated by historians but that I contend was not less important: her relationship with the ocean. Drawing especially on Lai's personal records, letters, and photographs, this article brings into view Lai's affinity for the beach as well as her particular enjoyment of activities such as ocean swimming and wave riding, along with the meanings that these engagements held for her. It ultimately argues that Lai found in the ocean a source of not only pleasure and leisure but also sustenance, one that supported her efforts to navigate life's challenges and to define the terms of her own existence, against those imposed upon her by prevailing forces of racial, patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist domination.
Elizabeth E. Sine (2026) studied this question.