Thumb and pinky extended, three middle fingers curled inward. The Shaka is instantly recognizable.

In Hawaiʻi, it can mean hello, goodbye, thank you, right on, take care, all good, or simply: I see you. Around the world, it appears on beaches, ski slopes, television screens, sporting events, advertisements, social media, and phones.

Yet ask a deceptively simple question—Where did the Shaka come from?—and certainty disappears.

People offer guesses. Some credit surfers. Others point to entertainers, politicians, advertising, Buddhism, plantation history, or folklore. Some believe the gesture is simply another way of saying “hang loose.” Even people who have thrown Shakas their entire lives often admit they were never taught where it originated.

Filmmaker and brand storyteller Steve Sue becomes obsessed with solving the mystery.

What begins as curiosity turns into a years-long  “who dunnit” investigation involving interviews, old photographs, newspaper archives, family histories, cultural experts, entertainers, surfers, politicians, military veterans, historians, religious scholars, and generations of Hawaiʻi residents.

The evidence accumulates.

So Steve does what any good investigator might do: he builds a giant crime board.

Instrumental to Steve’s investigation is Aunty Kela Miller, a Laʻie “Kupuna” elder who told him years earlier that if he really wanted to understand the Shaka, he needed to spend time with her family in Laʻie.

Now, after exhaustive investigation, Steve has returned with photographs, names, dates, theories, newspaper clippings, and disparate stories to show Aunty Kela what he has discovered.

As he presents his historical evidence, they begin connecting the pieces, and the dots.

Who created the gesture?

Who named it?

How did it spread?

What did it originally mean?

And why did this little hand sign become one of Hawaiʻi’s most recognizable gifts to the world?

The investigation begins as a playful cultural mystery.

But with every new piece Steve places on his crime board, another possibility emerges:

Perhaps the real mystery isn’t simply where the Shaka came from.

Perhaps it’s why it means so much.

Before Steve can discover where the Shaka came from, he first has to understand what it actually means.

That proves surprisingly difficult.

The answer depends on whom he asks.

Former Miss Universe Brook Lee remembers throwing Shakas instinctively on national TV after winning Miss USA and again on the international stage. To her, it was an involuntary expression of joy and Hawaiʻi identity—even when television executives initially worried that viewers unfamiliar with the gesture might mistake it for a gang sign.

That misunderstanding exposes one of the film’s central tensions:

A gesture universally understood in Hawaiʻi can be completely misunderstood somewhere else.

In Hawaiʻi, children learn the Shaka almost as naturally as children elsewhere learn a thumbs-up. Friends use it to greet one another. Drivers use it to say thank you after someone lets them merge. It can acknowledge a stranger without requiring words.

Its meaning changes with context, yet nearly every meaning is positive.

Aloha. Mahalo. Howzit. Right on. We’re good. I got you.

Even the way the gesture is thrown carries identity. Some people squeeze it tightly. Some barely move their hand. Others exaggerate it or shake it vigorously. Locals joke that they can sometimes tell where someone is from simply by the person’s Shaka.

But beneath the humor lies something deeper.

The gesture creates connection.

A Shaka That May Have Saved Lives

That power becomes dramatically clear through the story of Hawaiʻi soldiers deployed to Iraq.

Members of Hawaiʻi’s 2nd Battalion, 299th Infantry naturally threw Shakas while interacting with one another and with surrounding communities. Their commander recalls operating in an extraordinarily dangerous environment filled with improvised explosive devices, sniper attacks, and bombings.

Yet the Hawaiʻi soldiers approached local residents differently. They organized medical clinics, donated books and shoes, gave children soccer balls, and treated people with respect.

Soon, Iraqi children began running toward their vehicles throwing Shakas.

The gesture became a visual identifier:

Those are the Hawaiʻi guys. Those are the friendly guys. The good guys.

The commander believes the relationships his soldiers developed helped protect them.

Ironically, military leadership initially viewed the casual gesture as inappropriate. After a general reprimanded the unit, an official order prohibited Shakas while on duty. The Hawaiʻi soldiers responded with humor, inventing an elaborate tongue-in-cheek “Shaka escalation matrix.”

But in Iraq and later Afghanistan, the gesture continued doing something military protocol could not easily accomplish:

It communicated friendship before words were exchanged.

Another piece goes onto the crime board.

The Shaka is not merely a greeting.

It can establish trust.

And wherever it travels, it seems to carry a little piece of Hawaiʻi with it.

Steve moves to another section of the board.

If the Shaka began in Hawaiʻi, how did it get everywhere else?

The investigation reveals several cultural highways that carried the gesture beyond the islands.

Television Turns a Local Gesture Into a Statewide Signature

One major amplifier was television.

In the late 1970s, KHON news anchor Paul Udell noticed something distinctive about Hawaiʻi. After evenings filled with difficult news, he wanted his broadcasts to end with a feeling of reassurance and community.

He began sending reporters into the field asking people to “give us a Shaka.”

When the reporters failed to bring back footage, Udell grabbed a cameraman and did it himself.

People happily responded.

Soon, ordinary residents throwing Shakas became part of the station’s sign-off—a warm visual message that seemed to say:

We’re all in this together. Things are going to be okay.

Television helped transform a familiar local gesture into an increasingly visible symbol of Hawaiʻi.

Steve adds television to the board.

But television cannot explain how the Shaka crossed oceans.

Another trail can.

Surfing Takes the Shaka Global

Surfing, one of Hawaiʻi’s great cultural gifts to the world, became an international phenomenon. Surfers from California, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Europe, and elsewhere traveled to Hawaiʻi—especially Oʻahu’s legendary North Shore—to test themselves against the world’s most celebrated waves.

They encountered local surfers throwing Shakas.

Hawaiʻi surfers then traveled abroad, taking the gesture with them.

By the 1960s and 1970s, the Shaka was becoming intertwined with surfing culture. International surfers adopted it as a sign of belonging, credibility, adventure, and shared experience.

Surf companies and apparel brands accelerated the spread. “Hang loose” imagery appeared on shirts and advertisements. In Brazil, the Hang Loose surf brand built its identity around the gesture.

From surfing, the Shaka migrated into other action and extreme sports.

It became a visual shorthand for:

Go for it.

Steve draws another line across the board:

Hawaiʻi → surfing → the world.

Yet the film challenges the simplistic notion that Shaka and aloha merely mean being passive, mellow, or “laid back.”

Respect, Conflict and Eddie Aikau

The North Shore surf scene reveals another side of aloha.

As international surfers increasingly arrived in Hawaiʻi, tensions developed between visiting competitors and local surfers who believed some outsiders were taking from Hawaiʻi without giving anything back.

The conflict became dangerous.

Legendary waterman Eddie Aikau stepped between the factions.

Rather than allowing violence to determine the outcome, Eddie helped bring people together to talk. Through confrontation, reconciliation, forgiveness, and mutual respect, adversaries found a path forward.

A photograph emerging from the episode captures something extraordinary: men who had been on opposing sides together, with a Shaka signaling a newly forged bond.

Another photograph goes onto the board.

Another meaning emerges.

Aloha isn’t avoiding conflict.

Sometimes aloha means having the courage to confront conflict, listen, forgive, heal, and grow.

And the Shaka can symbolize the relationship that remains afterward.

The investigation now shifts from meaning and migration to attribution.

Steve begins moving backward through time.

If surfers spread the Shaka internationally, who made it famous in Hawaiʻi?

Several names go onto Aunty Kela’s board.

Mayor Frank Fasi

For many Hawaiʻi residents, one answer seems obvious:

Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi.

Fasi made the Shaka a cornerstone of his political identity. Campaign signs featured the hand rather than simply his name. He even created a “Shaka Party.”

The symbol was ingenious—instantly recognizable, populist, local, and difficult for political opponents to suppress.

When city officials attempted to prevent Fasi from putting his name on public project signs, he simply used the Shaka instead.

Everyone knew whose sign it was.

Fasi helped institutionalize the gesture across Honolulu, while another Fasi-era innovation eventually made it literally flash across Hawaiʻi’s roads: TheBus developed a dashboard switch allowing drivers to illuminate a Shaka and “MAHALO” on the rear of the bus to thank courteous motorists.

Fasi’s photograph earns a prominent place on the board.

But then Steve finds evidence predating him.

Fasi didn’t invent it.

So the investigation moves backward again.

Elvis Throws a Shaka to the World

In 1973, Elvis Presley concludes his historic Aloha from Hawaiʻi performance with a Shaka.

Millions around the world see it.

Elvis’s use of the gesture demonstrates that by the early 1970s the Shaka was already sufficiently established in Hawaiʻi that visiting entertainers could recognize and adopt it.

Steve pins Elvis onto the board.

Then the trail leads deeper into Hawaiʻi’s entertainment world.

During Waikīkī’s showroom era, local musicians, comedians, actors, and personalities regularly crossed paths with visiting international stars. The Shaka became part of that social vocabulary.

Comedians especially embraced it because the gesture itself could become performance—small Shakas, giant Shakas, exaggerated Shakas, comic Shakas.

And one colorful entertainer repeatedly appears in the testimony.

Lippy Espinda and the Shaka Name

Lippy Espinda was an entertainer, actor, television personality, gas station operator, and legendary used-car salesman.

He was charismatic, funny, unmistakably local—and an extraordinary promoter.

Lippy used the word “Shaka” publicly and repeatedly. Newspaper advertising, television appearances, commercials, and his larger-than-life personality helped associate the word with the hand gesture in the public imagination.

But when Steve compares the stories told about Lippy—and by Lippy—with testimony and archival evidence, the picture becomes less certain.

Different accounts conflict.

Dates don’t always line up.

Claims evolve.

The evidence clearly demonstrates Lippy’s importance as a popularizer and promoter, but the historical record does not support the simple story that he invented either the underlying gesture or the word itself.

That distinction becomes crucial.

Steve places Lippy on the board—but doesn’t draw the final line.

Instead, the investigation separates into two questions:

Where did the gesture come from?

And:

Where did the word “Shaka” come from?

For the first time, Steve realizes they may have entirely different histories that eventually converged.

And the trail to the word leads somewhere unexpected:

Japan.

The board has now stretched far beyond surfing, politics and entertainment.

Steve follows the word itself.

“Shaka” is not Hawaiian. There is no “SH” in Hawaiian language.

But in Japan, Shaka is an ancient and familiar name.

It refers to Shakyamuni Buddha.

For centuries, Japanese Buddhists have referred to the historical Buddha as Shaka, Shakyamuni, or respectfully as O-Shaka-sama.

Japanese immigrants brought their language, Buddhist traditions, beliefs, and customs with them to Hawaiʻi during the plantation era.

And in 1962, an epic film from Japan called Buddha premiered in Hawai’i to great fanfair, bringing the deep story of Shakyamuni Buddha to the masses in Hawai’i.

So the word Shaka was present in Hawaiʻi long before Lippy Espinda’s 1970s advertisements and television appearances.

Archival and community testimony further connects the word with colloquial expressions circulating locally among people familiar with Japanese culture.

The investigation then goes deeper.

A Language Spoken With Hands

Buddhist imagery communicates through mudras—symbolic hand gestures whose positions convey specific meanings and identify different Buddhas and teachings.

One of the oldest and most resonant messages expressed through Buddhist hand symbolism is Shakyamuni’s raised open palm gesture:

Fear not.

The open hand shows that no weapon is being held.

There is nothing to fear.

I’m okay. You’re okay. Fear not.

Other Buddhist mudras contain hand configurations visually evocative of what would later become associated with the Shaka.

Now pieces that seemed unrelated begin moving toward one another on Steve’s board:

Shaka.

Shakyamuni.

Japan.

Buddhism.

Mudra.

Fear not.

Hawaiʻi’s plantation communities.

And eventually:

Go for it.

The connection is striking.

The word and symbolic meanings have deep Japanese roots. Those roots entered Hawaiʻi through generations of Japanese immigration and cultural exchange, long before commercial personalities popularized the modern term.

The Shaka story is beginning to reveal something distinctly Hawaiʻi: cultures do not exist here in isolation. They meet, influence one another, adapt, and become part of a larger shared vocabulary.

But Steve still has not solved the other half of the mystery.

The hand itself.

For that, Aunty Kela keeps pointing him back to the same place.

Laʻie.

And the same man.

Hamana Kalili.

Steve finally turns to the section of his board Aunty Kela has been waiting for.

Hamana Kalili, affectionately remembered as Tūtū Hamana, was a respected Hawaiian elder, fisherman, musician, church leader, community figure, athlete, actor, model and larger-than-life presence in Laʻie.

He was also missing three middle fingers on one hand.

When Hamana waved, his hand naturally formed what the world would later recognize as the Shaka.

How Did Hamana Lose His Fingers?

Even here, folklore has obscured history.

Stories differ.

Hamana apparently enjoyed telling children a colorful version involving a large fish and a shark.

Other stories involve explosives.

But testimony from those closest to the community points toward an industrial accident involving the sugar plantation railroad, where workers faced dangerous equipment and primitive coupling systems on sugarcane railroad systems.

Steve examines the machinery and the dangerous work required to connect rail cars.

Whatever the exact circumstances of the accident, archival photographs, newspaper clippings and film footage make one historical fact is unmistakable:

Hamana’s hand missing three fingers was real.

And generations of Laʻie residents remember it.

Train Jumpers and the “All Clear”

Laʻie elders recall childhood adventures involving plantation trains.

Children sometimes jumped aboard slow-moving sugar trains to travel toward Kahuku Town or grab pieces of sugarcane.

Hamana’s job included keeping them off.

The children learned to watch for him.

When Hamana was present, his distinctive hand became associated with the man they needed to avoid.

When he wasn’t there, children mimicked Hamana’s hand to signal to one another that the coast was clear.

Hamana isn’t here. Go!

A practical childhood signal began spreading through the community.

Other residents remember Hamana simply waving naturally with his distinctive hand.

Children copied him.

Family copied family.

Neighbors copied neighbors.

The gesture spread through ʻohana.

Long before anyone called it “Shaka,” Laʻie had the wave.

Suddenly, photographs, oral histories and memories scattered across Steve’s board begin connecting.

But the biggest revelation isn’t Hamana’s hand.

It’s Hamana himself.

The Man Behind the Hand

Historical research reveals an extraordinary life.

Newspaper accounts describe Hamana as a “Hawaiian Hercules” rescuing an injured woman from the mountains, repeatedly risking his own life and carrying her toward safety.

Other records document him as a champion athlete, musician, fisherman, community leader, political figure, church elder, performer, and even a portrayal of King Kamehameha in public celebrations.

In photographs and public appearances, his distinctive hand was visible decades before the Shaka became a mass-media symbol.

Yet those who knew him remember something more important than celebrity or accomplishment:

Service.

Hamana shared his knowledge.

He shared fish.

He helped neighbors.

He served his community.

His injured hand did not diminish him. He continued fishing, casting nets, working, leading, and giving.

The man behind the gesture embodied many of the values the Shaka would eventually come to represent.

Aunty Marilyn and the Fight to Remember

For years, people in Laʻie understood the connection between Hamana and the familiar hand sign while much of Hawaiʻi did not.

Teacher Marilyn Fonoimoana Washburn became determined to preserve the story.

When public discussion questioned the Shaka’s origins, she gathered community testimony and pushed for recognition of Hamana’s role.

She eventually carried the story directly to Mayor Frank Fasi—the politician many people would later mistakenly credit with creating the gesture.

Fasi ultimately issued a proclamation honoring Hamana Kalili.

Steve can now draw lines across decades of his board.

Hamana → Laʻie → the wave.

Japan → Shaka → the word and meanings.

Entertainment → Lippy → promotion.

Politics → Fasi → mass visibility.

Television → statewide identity.

Surfing → worldwide adoption.

The mystery is coming together.

But Aunty Kela’s story still has another layer.

Because understanding Hamana requires understanding the community that produced him.

And understanding Laʻie reveals what the film has actually been searching for all along.

Laʻie, the Hukilau and the Power of Aloha

Steve’s investigation widens from one man to an entire community.

Laʻie carries a long tradition of refuge, gathering, faith, generosity, and collective action.

Residents remember a small community where people knew one another, welcomed strangers, shared food, and worked together because survival and success depended upon cooperation.

Hamana was part of that ecosystem.

When schools of fish arrived, the community worked together to pull nets ashore. Fish were distributed throughout the village.

That communal fishing tradition becomes central to the film through the hukilau.

Everyone Pulls Together

After Laʻie’s wooden church burned, the community needed money to construct another building.

The solution was ingenious:

Invite visitors to experience a hukilau.

A hukilau is not merely catching fish.

It requires people to pull together.

Fishermen prepare the nets.

Others cook.

Others perform music and hula.

Some weave hats or make lei.

Some sell tickets.

Some set tables.

Visitors join residents in pulling the net from the sea.

Everyone has a role.

Hamana led the fishing operation, called for the community to huki—pull—and served as a central figure in the festivities.

The events were so successful and joyful that they continued well beyond their original fundraising purpose.

They became an early model for sharing the culture and hospitality of Laʻie with visitors and helped lay groundwork for what would eventually become the Polynesian Cultural Center.

And they provided another mechanism through which Hamana’s distinctive wave traveled.

Visitors encountered it.

People photographed it.

Children copied it.

Residents shared it.

Tourists carried photographs and memories home.

Steve adds the hukilau to the board.

And suddenly the physical origin story and the philosophical story become inseparable.

The Secret Was Never Just the Hand

The real discovery is no longer about the mechanics of cultural transmission.

It is about why Laʻie flourished.

The answer repeatedly given by its people is:

Aloha.

Not aloha merely as hello or goodbye.

Aloha as behavior.

Aloha as generosity.

Aloha as service.

Aloha as courage.

Aloha as forgiveness.

Aloha as responsibility.

Aloha as people choosing cooperation over conflict.

The hukilau becomes the film’s living metaphor.

One person cannot pull in the net.

One person cannot feed the village.

One person cannot create the music, prepare the food, welcome the visitors, preserve the traditions, and build the community.

Everybody has to pull together.

People in Laʻie did not have it easy.

Yet they made something extraordinary from what they had.

They chose cooperation over conflict.

They served one another.

They cared for the natural resources that sustained them.

They welcomed outsiders.

They created joy.

And through collective action, they transformed a small community into a place people from around the world would eventually travel to experience.

Steve’s investigation has finally answered a question he didn’t know he was asking when he started.

They didn’t discover paradise.

They created it.

And that leads to the film’s central realization:

PARADISE IS A CHOICE.

Steve returns to Aunty Kela and the enormous  crime board, now with hundreds of images on it.

At the beginning, it looked like chaos.

Photographs.

Names.

Newspaper clippings.

Surfers.

Soldiers.

Politicians.

Entertainers.

Buddhas.

Fishermen.

Train-jumping kids.

Television anchors.

Hukilaus.

A mayor.

A used-car salesman.

Elvis Presley.

Eddie Aikau.

Hamana Kalili.

Stories spanning generations and traveling halfway around the world.

Now Steve begins stretching yard to connect the dots of key story points, connecting the final pieces into an intelligible whole.

What looked like separate stories form one enormous picture.

Hamana is the thread that stretches across the history of the gesture—but he isn’t the entire story.

Children imitated him.

Families carried the wave.

Laʻie shared it.

Visitors encountered it.

Japanese culture contributed the Shaka word and deeper symbolic meanings.

Entertainers popularized it.

Lippy Espinda put the word, meaning and gesture together and promoted with it.

Frank Fasi transformed it into a civic and political icon.

Television broadcast it.

Surfers carried it across oceans.

Businesses branded it.

Athletes adopted it.

Hawaiʻi soldiers used it to establish trust half a world away.

And millions of ordinary people made it their own.

Steve looks at the board and realizes:

Everybody had a hand in it.

And perhaps that is exactly why the Shaka became so powerful.

Its story could never be reduced to one person, one moment, or one simple explanation.

Its gesture, name, meanings, and global spread came together across generations.

The Shaka was born in Hawaiʻi.

But what it represents can be shared by everyone.

More Than a Gesture

Steve looks beyond the physical hand sign and begins seeing recurring ideas in virtually every story on the board.

People use the Shaka to connect.

To serve.

To express gratitude.

To show that things are pono—all good, right, as they should be.

And to encourage one another to fear not and go for it.

The pieces that began as historical clues have become something else.

They have become a set of values.

The people of Laʻie provide the living example.

They faced hardship but chose cooperation over conflict.

They shared what they had.

They cared for one another.

They cared for the place that sustained them.

They welcomed strangers.

They worked together.

They created something extraordinary from limited resources.

They didn’t find paradise. They made it.

The film returns to the joyous Shaka contest that has threaded through the journey.

After more than a century of history, competing origin stories, surfers, soldiers, entertainers, politicians, fishermen, train-jumping children, Buddhist scholars, and Laʻie elders, people of every kind throw their own versions of the gesture.

There is no single perfect Shaka.

That, too, may be the point.

What matters is what we put behind it.

SHAKA, A Story of Aloha ultimately transforms a cultural “who dunnit” into an invitation.

Say hello to a stranger.

Include someone who has been left out.

Help a neighbor.

Show gratitude.

Choose cooperation.

Care for the place where you live.

Have the courage to act.

Fear not.

Go for it.

Pull together.

Share aloha.

Because Steve’s greatest discovery isn’t simply where the Shaka came from.

It’s what generations of people have used it to create:

connection, community, joy—and paradise.

And if paradise can be created through the choices people make together, then paradise isn’t limited to Hawaiʻi.

Paradise is a choice.

With the power of aloha, we can create it anywhere, anytime.