[1][2] Directed by Noelle Kahanu and Heather Giugni, the film is related to a 2002 Bishop Museum exhibition "Hui Panalāʻau: Hawaiian Colonists, American Citizens.

In 1935, the US Department of Air Commerce announced the need to reclaim the strategically located Line Islands, ostensibly to protect federal interests in commercial aviation routes between California and Australia.

[5][6] The government recruited the initial 130 colonists among young men at Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii, and also among furloughed Army personnel.

Throughout the 1930s, the vast majority of subsequent colonists sent to these islands were Native Hawaiian young men recruited from Kamehameha schools.

The documentary includes interviews with the (now aged) surviving colonists, many contemporary photographs, and occasional descriptions of related political and world events.