Plate Lunch Imperialism

Friday, February 15, 2013

Plate Lunch Imperialism

Plate lunch from Rainbow Drive-In, photo from Go Visit Hawaii

In her book on the US conquest of Hawaii, Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell writes:

Sugar plantation workers used to share food at lunchtime, swapping tofu and Chinese noodles for Korean spareribs and Portuguese bread. That habit of hodgepodge got passed down, evolving into the plate lunch now served at diners, drive-ins and lunch trucks throughout the Hawaiian archipelago….Rainbow Drive-In's menu, offering teriyaki, hot dogs, mahimahi, and Portuguese sausage, reads like a list of what America is supposed to be like--a neighborly mishmash (8).

Considering the imperialism debate within the US at the end of the 19th century, the Filipino resistance and the acquisition of colonial territories, to what degree do you think that America's increasing involvement in world affairs led to a "plate lunch" culture at home?

Vowell, Sarah. Unfamiliar Fishes. New York: Riverhead Books, 2011.

Course Objectives

This is a broad survey course designed to introduce students to basic themes and events in American History, as well as college-level research and study skills. As this is a writing intensive course, students will develop critical writing skills through online discussion, essay writing and document analysis. We will cover material beginning with the Civil War and Reconstruction and extending through the Presidential election of 2000.

By the end of this course students will have experience evaluating historical materials, constructing and supporting an argument, and performing basic research. Students will also work collaboratively in-class and online to discuss material, analyze primary documents and develop note-taking and study skills.

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Course Learning Outcomes

During this course, students will:

• identify and apply the key historical concepts of change-over-time, cause-and-effect, agency, historical empathy, and continuity and discontinuity, and recognize how these concepts are employed in the historical method

• analyze and interpret primary sources with attention to audience, authorship and context

• recognize some of the ways in which historians have conflicting interpretations of the past

• produce a paper with a clear thesis and appropriate citations based on strong evidence drawn from historical sources

• identify and discuss the importance of contact and conquest, colonial foundations, revolution and Constitution, immigration, geographic expansion, experiences of native peoples, role of women, slavery and African American experiences and the sectional crisis leading to the Civil War