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1 results

  • Chapter 14 - From Napoleon to MacArthur

  • from Part III - Applications
  • Edited by Sudesh Mishra, University of the South Pacific, Caitlin Vandertop, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    Commodities and Literature
    Published online:
    14 October 2025
    Print publication:
    09 October 2025, pp 244-261

  • Summary

    This chapter considers SPAM’s emergence as a mass commodity and agent of ‘gastrocolonisation’, charting its appearance in literary texts and popular culture from witty ‘SPAM-ku’ poems’ to the work of Indigenous poets from Oceania. It begins by discussing the commodity’s emergence as a cheap protein source for immigrants and urban working-class Americans during the Depression, before tracing SPAM’s migration to countries such as Hawaii, South Korea and Guam, where American military personnel were stationed during wartime. While SPAM captured hearts and appetites, transitioning from a war ration to haute cuisine, it has been seen as problematic by Indigenous writers such as Craig Santos Perez. The chapter ends by examining SPAM’s appearance in Perez’s poetry as it visualises the devastation wrought upon the CHamoru body and land.