Along with the film Go For Broke! this documentary chronicles the intense patriotism of Japanese Americans despite those on the mainland being interned in camps during WWII.
An interesting detail was friction between the Kotonks (mainlanders) and the Buddhaheads (Hawaiians).
Per the article "Kotonks vs. Buddhaheads" by Robert Asahina on the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans site, "The Hawaiians, products of the plantation system, enjoyed a sense of group solidarity — even, as the largest minority group in the islands, a sense of ethnic superiority. The mainlanders, by contrast, were used to life as a tiny and — after the “relocation” — legally oppressed minority."
"Tensions eventually erupted in brawls between the two groups. The Hawaiians soon invented a nickname for their adversaries — kotonks, for the sound of mainlanders’ heads striking the ground like coconuts. The mainlanders were just as quick to call the islanders “Buddhaheads” — not just a religious reference but a play on the word buta, Japanese for 'pig.'"
As the documentary chronicles, tensions began to abate when groups of soldiers from the Hawaiian 442d visited relocation camps. According to Daniel Inouye of the 442d and later a U.S. Senator, "The thing that went through my mind constantly was: “I wonder what I would have done. Would I have volunteered?” We [Hawaiians] volunteered from a community that was generous. We weren’t herded away. But these guys were herded into camps like this, and they volunteered."
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