Colonialism and American Imperialism’s Damaging Impact on the Foodways of Hawaii and Pacific Island Nations
“My stomach is a colonial subject of the United States…”, Chamorro Poet Craig Santos Perez
The ancient Polynesian navigators are said to have arrived in the Hawaiian Islands over 800 years ago, bringing with them an advanced culture learned in the arts of reading the stars, the oceans currents and the clouds; skills that have been passed down for generations including the arts of language, dance and song. It wasn’t until 1778 and the arrival of British Captain James Cook on the island of Kauai that Hawaiians had their first foreign contact. Unbeknownst to them at the time was that 120 years later, a group of wealthy American businessmen would stage a coup d’état and overthrow their constitutional monarchy. Although the president of the United States at the time, Grover Cleveland, condemned the coup; the US Marines were sent in to support the new “provisional government”, thus solidifying the end of the independent nation of Hawaii and banning their language and culture. In the years that followed, Native Hawaiians would witness dispossession and the attempted extermination of their way of life while unwittingly lurching into a history of settler-colonialism and later imperialism at the hands of the United States government and its military power who viewed it as its most strategic asset in the Pacific. A similar pattern can be witnessed in the accounts of many Pacific Island nations that also experienced “structural violence” at the hands of American Expansionism during World War 2 by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. However, unlike other Native peoples controlled by the United States, Hawaiians still have no separate legal status and are considered “aboriginal Polynesians” in contrast to Native American Indians; severly limiting their rights.
It has been said that history can be found in our foods. The introduction of the pork product SPAM to the Hawaiian Islands and its influence in the Asian Pacific theater during WW II demonstrates a specific example. Through the study of these foodways as well as analyzing the Native Hawaiian ethnography, we can view the early effects of settler-colonialism and its goal of attempting to replace the indigenous population as well as the biopolitical governance of food. “Biopower” is evidenced by the US governments use of military power and political expansion as dual techniques for achieving the subjugation in, as well as the influence and control of the physical bodies of Pacific Islanders (Foucault). American Military Imperialism still resonates to this day through SPAM as a representation of oppression and through a lens of continuous paternalistic practices while at the same time serving as a symbol of the conquering of both structures.
On July 5th, 1937, the Hormel Foods pork product we now know as SPAM hit the shelves of American grocers, although it did not make its global mark until the US entered WWII and the military began shipping it to soldiers. Initially it became appreciated among Great Depression-era families for its inexpensiveness before being conscripted by the US Military as a ration for the war because didn’t need to be refrigerated and also because of its long shelf-life. By end of the war, more than 100 million tins of SPAM had been shipped to soldiers around the world. Today, over 8 billion cans later, Americans still consume nearly 4 cans of SPAM every second and 1 out of 3 American households have a container on their shelves. Hawaiians consume more SPAM than any other state in the US and on the island of Guam, the average annual consumption works out to 16 cans per person; most per capita of anywhere in the world (Glancey). While South Korea is the second leading consumer after the US, its popularity is also deeply ingrained in Filipino culture as well as in the islands of Tahiti and Samoa. So how has this fascination with SPAM come about?
Throughout WW II the Hawaiian Islands were a war zone, with government-mandated blackouts and curfews, food rationing and restrictions on the news and mail. Every man, woman and child over the age of six was forced to be fingerprinted. “Hawaii was under martial law for seven years during which time hundreds of thousands of acres of land were confiscated, civil rights were held in abeyance and a general atmosphere of military intimidation reigned” (Haunani-Kay). The US government, fearful and suspicious of the loyalty of Asian immigrants placed sanctions on Hawaii residents restricting the deep-sea fishing industries that were mainly run by Japanese Americans. Because islanders were no longer allowed to fish, one of the most important sources of protein throughout the islands disappeared and SPAM helped replace it. In many Pacific island nations, the pre-war landscape had been predominately agrarian and undeveloped. “The military use of the land for bases was the primary factor of losing agricultural land and a change to canned goods along with becoming refugees on their own island” (Cruz). Therefore, the ability for once self-sustaining families to live off the land and sea was severely reduced and SPAM was one of the few limited items that Hawaiians were able to subsist on throughout the war. With large populations of Portuguese, Chinese and Filipino migrant workers who were able to easily incorporate SPAM into their own ethnic dishes, the popularity of SPAM multiplied. “Filipino’s took on canned food, ended up appropriating, embellishing and then ultimately normalizing - indeed nativizing – an unloved, utilitarian piece of colonial kit. Every can in my family’s house contains the colonial history between America and the Philippines” (Castillo). Over many generations, the desire for SPAM has been passed down solidifying it as a cultural staple while many still embrace it as a symbol of survival and adaptability. “To the people of Hawaii, Spam meant precious nourishment in a time of uncertainty and chaos. Thus, they prepared it with an immense amount of love” (Noguchi).
Ironically, when anyone from the American mainland would describe eating SPAM, it was generally thought that they were trying to save money or that they simply couldn’t afford anything else to eat. It was viewed as an inferior good or a product someone would purchase if they were poor or from a lower class. “To millions of devotees in and across the Pacific Ocean, however, Spam is not only an essential part of the local indigenous cuisine but a luxury commodity as well. What was initially thought of as poor man’s meat isn’t exactly cheap by canned food standards in the Philippines, which is why it cuts across social and economic barriers” (Kim). For many, SPAM is a taste of childhood and of nostalgia; that item you consume when feeling ‘homesick’; the fact that SPAM was cheap was simply a bonus.
Statehood, which transformed Hawaii’s economy from a colonial sugar and pineapple plantation system into a military behemoth and later a tourist mecca seems to have enabled a sense of entitlement that “white” Americans in particular feel about visiting Hawaii. Culturally, the rise of tourism and the US military presence in the Hawaiian Islands has forced Native Hawaiians to live at the margins of the island’s societies, accounting for only about 10% of the population. Native lands and fisheries have been taken for military bases, hotel resorts, urbanization and plantation agriculture. Tourism has appropriated and cheapened their dances, music and language. It seems apparent that Native Hawaiians should be thankful to “white” America for the symbols which actually reinforce settler-colonialism. That somehow indigenous people need hordes of tourists for an improved economy and a better way of life; or to keep the islands “civilized” in contrast to the “uncivilized” native peoples? And yet still today, military ships and planes continue to transport American military forces through Hawaii and many other Pacific nations on their way to imperialist wars around the world.
SPAM is an invasive settler food and a weapon of mass consumption” (Perez). The effects of Gastro-colonialism or the force feeding of natives unhealthy and imported foods in the Pacific Island nations, has shaped their diets and has been the most damaging when you look at the health and loss of identity of the people. “The destruction it has caused to our diets and physical health is yet another negative impact of global American militarism. The criticism of SPAM ignores deeper overarching structurally oppressive conditions that cause health issues” (Lewis). Historic trauma can also account for bad dietary choices. Poverty and depression can be viewed as ongoing expressions of colonization. When people are continually oppressed and abused, they find comfort and refuge where ever they can. “We’ve been forced into a state of reliance on canned foods, and our resources have been stripped away. Now we’re in a situation where people are sick” (Cruz).
The reintroduction of SPAM as a rising food trend seems to be another example of “Columbusing” or the “discovery” of trends in food that have existed for a long time outside the white American mainstream. The chief irony in “Columbusing” SPAM is that SPAM is actually American. “Americans were the ones to introduce Spam to countries abroad, only to then cast off those canned goods, and for it to all return, in 2019, to Americans re-discovering SPAM, in its internationally-interpreted form. Turning SPAM into a trend for Americans highlights an interesting turn in colonialism: SPAM goes full circle in a culinary globalism that started with America’s imperialist practices in the 20th century” (Makalintal).
In conclusion, history clearly illustrates how actions by the US government and its military initially forced Hawaiians and its migrant peoples to embrace SPAM, but consequently they reclaimed and transformed it into a symbol of survival. Hawaiian’s can be seen as having repatriated the unhealthy food that has become representative of their colonization. “There is no outward acknowledgment of the fact that the nations who cherish and consume SPAM the most are also the ones who have been occupied and/or annexed by the US and are still home to American military bases today. The love of SPAM and the billions in profits from that love…. owes much to US imperialism and expansionism abroad” (Makalintal). With no foreseeable end to a US military presence or mass tourism in Hawaii’s future and the likelihood of more “Columbusing” of other native foods to come; Hawaiians must ask themselves, is it still worth the Faustian bargain of trading in your indigenous soul for the rewards of the settler world?
“With every bite of SPAM, I consume layers of overlapping histories, migrations, and cultural transformations. With it I consume calamitous political turmoil, bloody military conflicts and other upheavals that shape much of the 21st century” (Kim Sylvie).
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