Welcome to the official website for Kris Coffield, a public policy specialist, political activist, nonprofit leader, sex trafficking victim service provider, writer, and trauma survivor living in Honolulu, Hawai’i.
About
Kris Coffield is the Executive Director of Imua Alliance, a non-profit victim service provider for survivors of human trafficking located in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He has spearheaded the organization’s restorative assistance for over 200 survivors of sexual exploitation, while working to enact legislative reforms that strengthen the state’s anti-trafficking continuum of care.
He is also the Chief of Staff for Rep. Jeanné Kapela at the Hawai’i State House of Representatives, where he is responsible for managing a public policy agenda that focuses on climate resilience, economic equality, tax fairness, educational equity, labor rights, racial and gender justice, and civil liberties. Previously, he championed efforts to increase school funding and restorative education programming as a government relations specialist with the Hawai’i State Teachers Association. He is a pioneering voice on numerous social and economic justice organizations in the islands, including the Raise Up Hawai’i coalition and Democratic Party of Hawai’i Education Caucus, for which he currently serves as chairperson.
Kris is an independent scholar, whose academic research explores the intersection of modern political theory, critical security studies, and postcolonialism. A survivor of sexual violence, he is a leading advocate for increasing protections for victims of gender violence and empowering communities to prevent harm before it begins. He is currently completing a poetry collection about the cultural experience of trauma and his personal healing journey.
He was awarded a 2021-2022 Landecker Democracy Fellowship by Humanity In Action and the Landecker Democracy Foundation. During the fellowship, he launched Platforming Peace, a movement to counter the digital reproduction of social inequality and authoritarianism. He is hoping to develop communal interventions that respond to the antidemocratic proliferation of structural discrimination in cyberspace. He was also awarded a 2022-2023 Racial Equity Grant from Humanity In Action to develop an anti-racist social media toolkit that allows digital citizens to coordinate networked communities of care that respond to online incidents of racial hatred.
In his spare time, he can be found editing his many writing projects, running up the mountain trails of windward O’ahu, and indulging his unending craving for chai tea lattes. View his professional resumé at his LinkedIn page: professional experience. Organizations with which he is affiliated appear below, along with a headshot that may be reused and redistributed.
Imua Alliance, Founder and Executive Director (2010-present)
Raise Up Hawai’i, Chairperson (2022-present)
Hawai’i Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Member (2012-present)
Democratic Party of Hawai’i, Education Caucus Chair (2018-present)
Humanity In Action, Racial Equity Grantee (2022-2023)
Landecker Democracy Foundation, Landecker Democracy Fellow (2021-2022)
Hawai’i State Teachers Association, Government Relations Consultant (2012-2018)
Friends of Jeanné Kapela, Campaign Manager (2018-present)
Friends of Amy Perruso, Campaign Manager (2018-2020)
Friends of Micah Pregitzer, Campaign Manager (2019-2020)
Blog
Schools Still Need Virus Vigilance
Safety first. As children, that motto was drilled into our minds. Whether we were crossing a street, learning how to ride a bicycle, or interacting with strangers, we were told to prioritize our personal security. If we behaved recklessly, then we knew that there might be consequences to our well-being. To improve public schools’ pandemic …
So Much Left To Learn
Twenty years ago, American naïveté was hijacked. Before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the United States thought of itself as impervious. Politicians believed that the fall of the USSR had resolved all grand ideological debates. Commentators predicted that democratic capitalism would consume the globe in short order. Even …
Resentment Is A Modern Problem
Everyone remembers the day. On January 6, 2021, rioters roiled by Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 U.S Presidential election stormed the nation’s Capitol, tearing through barricades and building security, and sending death chants echoing through the hallowed halls of Congress. More than 140 people were injured in the assault. Five people died, including police …
Writing
The following are samples of Kris Coffield’s writing.
Editorial
“Media literacy is essential to democracy” in Honolulu Star-Advertiser (April 16, 2023)
“Ending gender violence should be a pandemic priority” in Honolulu Star-Advertiser (December 3, 2020)
“Invest in education to end sex trafficking” in Honolulu Star-Advertiser (October 25, 2018)
Poetry
“Homeland PTSD,” poem in Streetcake, Issue 33 (January, 2014)
“Storm break,” haiku in Chrysanthemum, Issue 14 (October, 2013)
Scholarly Articles
“Politicizing the Spectacle” in In Media Res, “Spectacles of Protest” theme week (May, 2017)
“Naked Games: Procedural Misogyny in Videogame Culture,” in In Media Res, “Just Add Nudity” theme week (October, 2014)
“Terror, Trauma, and the Thing at Ground Zero,” in Evental Aesthetics, Volume 1, Number 3 (September, 2012)
“Humanities in Hawaiʻi, From Statehood to the Present,” in Inquire Journal of Comparative Literature, Volume 2, Number 2 (September, 2012)
Reviews
Politics of the Event: Time, Movement, Becoming by Tom Lundborg, in Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, Volume 10 (Fall, 2013)
Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva, in World History Connected, Volume 8, Number 3 (October, 2011)
Contact
Kris can be contacted at the following phone number and email address. He will respond to all inquiries as quickly as possible. For victim assistance or to report a tip about a potential human trafficking case, please notify Imua Alliance.
Phone: (808) 679-7454
Email: kriscoffield@gmail.com
Kris Coffield 