here in waikiki the u.s. army museum is hunkered down in the midst of other concrete high-rise hotels and condominiums, built in the post- 1959 statehood architectural style you like to think of as a very brady brutalism. the part where my plate lunch and i said it appeared in a black-and-white photographs on display there. the picture was taken in the summer of 1888, a few days after the sons of missionaries who had dethroned the wind queen handed over hawaii to the united states. the park is pitched tents of the first new york voluntary infantry. the spanish-american war has a soldier stopping off in the suddenly american city en route to the philippines to persuade the filipino people at gunpoint that self-government really isn't for everyone. [laughter] they named their enchantment off to the president to dispatch them here, can't mckinlay. the united states declared war on spain in april of 1898. by august, the mckinley administration invaded the colonies of cuba, puerto rico, philippines and guam and an

in 1961, the late leader established the rainbow drive-in, the joint on the edge of waikiki where i bought my plate lunch. if he had been an army cook with the 100th infantry battalion, the mostly hawaiian born japanese-american volunteer soldiers and the 142nd group becoming the most decorated unit in the american history and earning the nickname the purple heart battalion. their motto was remember pearl harbor. and their argument that they were americans not as the u.s. u.s. government classified them and their families enemy aliens. rainbow drive-in's menu offering teriyaki hot dogs, mahi mahi reads like america is supposed to be a neighborly mish mash. president obama mentioned once on a trip home his craving for plate lunch. listing rainbow drive-in as a possible stop. it made sense considering his kansan mother met his kenyan forty at the university of hawaii and his mother remarriage blessed him with a half indonesian sister. he's our first plate lunch president. [laughter] >> i see the history of hawaii as a painful tale of native loss combined with an idealistic multiethnic saga s