The Hawai‘i State Public Library recently began offering the streaming service Kanopy at https://www.librarieshawaii.org/ and will continue to offer it for free through April 30.
The offerings include 10 films by Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers of Stourwater Pictures, producers of the hour-long documentary, “Proof of Loyalty: Kazuo Yamane and the Nisei Soldiers of Hawai‘i,” which premiered in the Islands at the 2017 Hawai‘i International Film Festival. The film highlights the story of Hawai‘i-born Nisei Kazuo Yamane, who played a crucial role in World War II. Yamane was drafted just before the war and became a part of the 100th Infantry Battalion. Because of his exceptional Japanese language skills, he was selected to work at the Pentagon and in Europe. Yamane would eventually use his language skills to help shorten the war in the Pacific.
Most of the people interviewed for the film were either born in Hawai‘i or have lived in the Islands for most of their lives. They include the late labor lawyer and Nisei veteran and historian Ted Tsukiyama, who died last year; scholar and former UH Ethnic Studies director Dr. Franklin Odo, who now teaches at Amherst College in Massachusetts; former journalist and historian/documentarian Tom Coffman, who was born and raised in Kansas and has resided in Hawai‘i for over half a century; and former Honolulu Advertiser and KHON TV journalist Mark Matsunaga, whose father served in the Military Intelligence Service and who is now authoring a book on the Hawai‘i soldiers who served in the MIS. They add valuable historical and local insight to the film.
Ostrander and Sellers have been working with Kanopy as a streaming distributor for a number of years. Kanopy’s service is used by colleges, universities and public libraries worldwide.
Anyone wishing to view “Proof of Loyalty” — or any other film available on Kanopy — will need an active Hawai‘i State Public Library card and a PIN in order to sign in to Kanopy. If you have a card, but have forgotten your PIN, try entering the last four digits of the phone number you owned when you obtained your library card.
