Shows
The Paper Plane PodcastEp 17: 'Persepolis' w Pamela ChavezToday Colin is joined by his dear sister, comrade, and beloved friend, Pamela Chavez. The two met a little more than 2 decades ago at UC Santa Cruz via mutual friends, and came together due to their love for art, music, activism, liberatory education, and being hella f------- silly together as they made the path by walking it. She is someone C has and continues to admire and learn profoundly from, via her contagious courage as a Woman of Color Artist, Youth Advocate, Cultural worker, and community member. Today's guest is someone who is otherworldly talented as it pertains to...
2025-11-121h 09The Paper Plane PodcastEp 16: 'Exit West' & 'Tikim' w Liza GesudenToday's guest is Colin's dear sister, comrade, and peer mentor of over 15 years. Today's guest and Colin met at San Francisco State University as Graduate student Teaching Assistants for Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade in his Raza 580: Educational Equity course. They became fast friends and also fell in platonic love with each other’s partners, Virak and Em shortly after. They formed a powerful friendship quartet that despite a global pandemic and a move from the Bay to Long Beach, continues to grow and stand the test of time. This connection now also includes their children's wonderful bonds to one another. To...
2025-10-011h 23The Paper Plane PodcastEp 15: 'Sacred Lessons' & 'The Seven Circles' w Tadashi NakamuraIn today's episode, Colin sits down with his brother and award-winning filmmaker and storyteller Tadashi “Tad” Nakamura—someone whose work has given voice to untold histories, specifically from an AAPI perspective, and whose lens has always been guided by both craft and conscience.For this conversation, we’re grounding ourselves in two remarkable books: Mike dela Rocha’s Sacred Lessons: Teaching My Father to Love and Chelsey Luger and Thosh Collins’ The Seven Circles: Indigenous Teachings for Living Well. These aren’t just books to read—they’re invitations. They call us to consider how love can be a political act...
2025-08-161h 36The Paper Plane PodcastEp 14: 'Afterparties' w Samantha So-LambToday’s guest is someone Colin has known for close to a decade. They were both Teachers and Deans at sibling schools in Richmond, CA; she at Aspire Richmond Technology Academy Elementary, and Colin at Richmond Cal Prep 6-12. The two were also members of an Asian American & Pacific Islander Affinity Group, where they got to know each other and build community with other AAPI Educators in Aspire Public School’s Bay Area Region. Their children attend the same daycare and she is currently the Principal of Richmond Technology Academy, which is also where Colin's eldest daughter’s goes to scho...
2025-07-191h 21The Paper Plane PodcastEp 13: 'All About Love: New Visions' w Anjali RodriguesToday’s guest is someone Colin had the pleasure of meeting over a decade ago, as a grad student in USF’s Urban Education and Social Justice M.A. Teaching Program. Dr. Patrick Camangian introduced the two and today's guest shortly after became Colin's cooperating and Mentor Teacher at a Leadership 6-12 in Richmond, CA. Since then, they have and continue to bond over teaching, music, and aims to grow our communities, critical consciousness, hearts, and spirits, amidst systems that attempt to stamp each and every one of these out. C adores this dear sister and is honored to have...
2025-06-211h 22The Paper Plane PodcastEp 12: 'Spraycan Art,' ‘Baby Baby Please,' & 'Fighting to Belong' w Robert Liu-TrujilloToday Colin sits down with someone he met close to 2 decades ago, when a mutual Mentor– S/O Hodari Davis–connected them during the time he was an After School Intervention Program Coordinator for the non-profit, Making Waves in San Rafael, CA. Today's guest taught a DJ’ing enrichment course that their then 3rd to 8th grade students absolutely adored and his cool, calm, collected, and inquisitive demeanor immediately made Colin feel like he’d found an instant friend and comrade. Fast fwd 15+ years, they are both middle aged Papas and have since discovered many connections, be they to mutual f...
2025-05-3056 minThe Paper Plane PodcastEp 11: 'Inner Engineering' w Asena Tui'oneIn this episode, Colin sits down with someone he has known for over 2 decades and is absolutely beloved to him. The two met at UC Santa Cruz-Oakes College (OAKES!) in 2000 as freshmen, were Residential Advisors in their Sophomore and Junior years, and became especially close during Senior year, while studying abroad in West Africa, at the University of Ghana-Legon in 2004. They have witnessed up close and from afar, each other’s victories, mistakes, maturations, battles, joys, growth, healing, and transformations. Today's guest is a powerful combination of (1) softness and sensitivity, mixed brilliantly with (2) “don’t play in my face becaus...
2025-05-1656 minThe Paper Plane PodcastEp 10: 'The Color of Law' w Victor ReyesIn today’s episode, Colin sits down with his dear brother of close to 3 decades. The two met on the local basketball court in 6th grade via their mutual childhood friend, Ronnie Lang, to whom they dedicate this episode to, as a loved one who heartbreakingly passed from cancer a little over a decade ago. On the hoop court in the Richmond Annex as kids, they were affectionately known as “Asian Steve Kerr” and “Latino Khalid El-Amin”–which is f------ hilarious if you know late 90s basketball–and have had each other’s backs through countless moments and waves of good, bad, an...
2025-05-0254 minThe Paper Plane PodcastEp 9: 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao' w Dr. Rick AyersIn today’s episode, Colin sits down with his a dear friend and Mentor that he met over a decade ago, in the University of San Francisco’s 'Teaching: Urban Education & Social Justice' Master’s Program. Whether schlepping him across the Bay Bridge to graduate seminars or connecting him with brilliant veteran Educators like Amy Crawford and Dana Moran at Berkeley High School’s Communication Arts & Sciences small school, where Colin cut his teeth student teaching, today’s guest is someone he lovingly refers to as “Uncle" and "Sensei," due to his profound wisdom, patience, support, perpetual reflection, and contagious c...
2025-04-181h 13The Paper Plane PodcastEp 8: 'Bad Indians,' 'There There,' & 'Wandering Stars' w Dr. Dani Ahuicapahtzin CornejoToday’s guest is someone Colin had the very fortunate privilege of meeting at San Francisco State University over 15 years ago, when both were pursuing Master’s Degrees in the College of Ethnic Studies. As Teaching Assistants in Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s "Raza 580: Educational Equity" course and the East Oakland Step to College Program at Fremont High School with Jeff and Dr. Patrick “Cam” Camangian, Colin was taken aback by this brother’s deep sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and humility as it pertained to the work of supporting young people emerging from historically dispossessed communities, but also by the ways he balanced the...
2025-04-041h 20The Paper Plane PodcastEp 7: 'Born a Crime' w Dr. Katrina TraylorAs a now middle-aged Dad with chronic back pain, today’s distinguished guest is someone Colin has known, in the words of the poet and philosopher, Earl “E-40” Stevens, since he "was knee-high to a caterpillar’s toenail.” This interviewee is someone Colin met as an undergrad at UC Santa Cruz in Oakes College (OAKES!), and has been inspired by up close when organizing with People’s Education Movement - Bay Area and at Ed. Conferences or Professional Development Trainings…and from afar via Social Media, over the last two decades. Today’s guest continues to grow her powerful family, grow pow...
2025-03-2156 minThe Paper Plane PodcastEp 6: ‘This Bridge Called My Back' with Janet Muro VeraIn this episode, Colin sits down with his former student/mentee, current colleague, fellow Richmond-CA-raised-May-Gemini, BDay twin of his first-born child, someone he considers family, and whom he lovingly refers to as his “Young Mentor.” Janet Muro Vera, M.Ed discusses the anthology, "This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color" (1981), edited by 3rd Wave Feminist Scholars, Cherie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, and the powerful roles it has played in her life as a Chicana, Zacatecana, Mexican American, and Woman of Color Educator, from the Bay Area. Though he an elder millennial and she an elder Gen...
2025-03-071h 20The Paper Plane PodcastEp 5: 'When the Elephants Dance' & 'Martyr!' with Lisa AngIn today's episode, Colin sits down with his dear colleague, comrade, friend, and Pedagogical Sibling, Professor Lisa Ang, to discuss two groundbreaking novels in the realm of Asian American and post-colonial literature. Tess Uriza Holthe's novel, When the Elephants Dance (2002) is a powerful encounter with the forces ofJapanese and U.S. imperialism--and resistance to them--in the Philippines during WWII, expressed via the lenses of multiple dynamic narrators. Martyr! (2024) by poet and writer, Kaveh Akbar, follows the journey of a queer, Muslim, Iranian American artist, searching for meaning and possibility in the paths of living and/or dying. Colin and...
2025-02-211h 13The Paper Plane PodcastEp 4: 'Love & Rockets' with David GalvezIn today's episode, Colin discusses the Hernandez Brothers’ groundbreaking comic book series, "Love & Rockets" with his dear friend, chosen family, and someone whose wedding he was honored to officiate (despite being given insufficient information as to what it should entail), veteran Educator, student advocate, dark humor/dog-lover, and jack-of-all-trades, Mr. David Galvez. David Galvez is the proud son of Mexican immigrants and spent most of his childhood growing up in the eastern LA County communities of El Monte and Baldwin Park in the San Gabriel Valley. He credits his early love of independent comics, science fiction, and pun...
2025-02-061h 05The Paper Plane PodcastEp 3: 'Capital' with YD HawkinsIn this episode, Colin sits down with his dear Sactown/Bay Area sibling, (who goes by the pen name) YD Hawkins, to discuss "Capital" by Karl Marx, and it's impacts on his life and identity as an Artist, former Labor Organizer, and Social Worker. YD Hawkins is a bay area social worker, thinker, and poet. Over the years he has served as a union organizer, youth trauma response specialist, mental health case manager for adults with co-occurring disorders. His debut poetry collection “Years Like Fevers” is a document of the labor movement, love, and murder during the great r...
2025-01-241h 11The Paper Plane PodcastEp 2: 'Minor Detail' with Emalyn LopezIn today's episode, Colin sits down with his inaugural guest and cherished partner/spouse/co-Parent, Artist and Educator, Emalyn de la Rama Lopez (she/her/siya), to discuss Palestinian Author/Essayist, Adania Shibli's novel, "Minor Detail." Centering this short (105 pages) yet tremendously powerful novel that Em chose to have our discussion on today, we discuss the following themes...1. The Power of Silence and Ambiguity2. Themes of Trauma and Memory3. Narrative Structure and Dual Perspectives4. The Politics of Space and Place5. Gender and Violence6. The Unspoken and the Unseen7. The R...
2025-01-101h 14The Paper Plane PodcastEp 1: Introducing ‘The Paper Plane' Podcast with Colin EharaThe Paper Plane is a podcast created and hosted by Educator and Artist, Colin Ehara, where he interviews people he is blessed and honored to share community with, to ask them about a books that have had a transformational impact on their lives. In a society where literacy rates are steadily declining and a growing number of podcasts hosted by cishet men, un/consciously champion expressions of masculinity that come at the expense of women, femmes, and LGBTQIA2S+ (especially BIPOC) folx, this space aims to imperfectly/humanly operate as a counter-narrative. T...
2024-12-261h 15