2023 Keables Scholar

Tom Coffman

Mr. Tom Coffman, the award-winning local writer and filmmaker, will visit ‘Iolani School from March 27 to March 31 as the 2023 Keables Scholar. In his roles as journalist, author and filmmaker, Coffman has explored Hawaiian history, politics and society from annexation to current times.
 
His first book, Catch a Wave, published in 1972, is an account of Hawaii politics of that period.
 
His most popular work, Nation Within, is the “history of the American occupation of Hawaii.”
 
His most recent work, published in 2021, is Inclusion, a history of how Hawaii “protected Japanese Americans from mass internment, transformed itself and changed America."
 
He's currently at work on a book on the 100th battalion based on the oral histories of the soldiers.
 
Two of his books: Nation Within and The Island Edge of America received Ka Palapala Pookela Awards for Excellence in Nonfiction from the Hawaii Book Publishers Association.
 
His work has also won national awards for video and film. His film projects include "O Hawaii, From First Settlement to Kingdom," "Nation Within,"  "Arirang, The Korean American Journey," and "First Battle: The Battle for Equality in Wartime Hawaii."