la paperson (Wayne Yang)

The work of Wayne Yang (who sometimes writes as la paperson, an avatar that irregularly calls) transgresses the line between scholarship and community, as evidenced by his involvement in urban education and community organizing. He was the co-founder of the Avenues Project, a non-profit youth development organization, and also the co-founder of East Oakland Community High School. He also worked in school system reform as part of Oakland Unified School District’s Office of School Reform. An accomplished educator, Dr. Yang has taught high school in Oakland, California for over 15 years and is a recipient of the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award.

Dr. Yang writes about decolonization and everyday epic organizing, particularly from underneath ghetto colonialism, often with his frequent collaborator, Eve Tuck. Currently, they are convening The Land Relationships Super Collective, editing the book series, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, and editing the journal, Critical Ethnic Studies. He is interested in the complex role of cities in global affairs: cities as sites of settler colonialism, as stages for empire, as places of resettlement and gentrification, and as always-already on Indigenous lands.

Nick Sousanis

Nick Sousanis is an Eisner-winning comics author and an assistant professor of Humanities & Liberal Studies at San Francisco State University, where he is starting a Comics Studies program. He received his doctorate in education at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2014, where he wrote and drew his dissertation entirely in comic book form. Titled Unflattening, it argues for the importance of visual thinking in teaching and learning, and was published by Harvard University Press in 2015.

Rocio Rivera-Murillo

Rocio Rivera-Murillo is a senior at California State University, Northridge with a double major in Chicana/o Studies and Sociology. She is an intern with the Revolutionary Scholars Project, a resource center for formerly incarcerated and systems-impacted students. She plans to pursue a doctoral degree in Ethnic Studies and her research will focus on the intersection of prisons and environmental justice.

Paola Tapia

Paola Tapia is a senior at California State University, Northridge with a double major in Chicana/o Studies and Sociology. She is employed at the Child Family Guidance Center, an agency dedicated to addressing the mental health needs of children. Paola supervises and arranges activities for the children receiving services. She plans to pursue a Master’s in Social Work to become a clinical therapist.

Kiara Padilla

Kiara Padilla graduated from California State University, Northridge with a double major in Chicana/o Studies and Psychology. She is an Andrew Mellon Foundation fellow in the HSI Pathways to the Professoriate program and recently started the doctoral program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. She plans to pursue research on the mental health of deportees residing along the US–Mexico border with histories of incarceration.

Martha Escobar

Martha D. Escobar is Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Northridge. She obtained her doctoral degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego and is the author of Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina (Im)migrants. She is one of the coordinators of the Carcerality Research Lab and is a faculty advisor for Revolutionary Scholars Project, a resource center for formerly incarcerated students and systems-impacted students.

JulianGlenn “Luke” Padgett

JulianGlenn “Luke” Padgett is an original cast member of the Artistic Ensemble at San Quentin and appeared with them in Waterline and Faultline. He has performed for fourteen seasons with Marin Shakespeare’s Shakespeare in Prison program, most recently appearing as Sam in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys at Solano Prison. He plays a leadership role in the independent performance collective PAS (Performance at Solano). Luke is also a playwright, musician, choreographer, podcaster, sound engineer, and journalist, currently serving as Managing Editor of the Solano Vision News.

Amie Dowling

Amie Dowling is an Associate Professor in the Performing Arts Department at University of San Francisco where she co-teaches the Performing Arts and Community Exchange class (PACE). As an outside member of the Artistic Ensemble she collaborates with artists/activists incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison (CA). Amie has offered performance workshops in Ludlow Correctional Facility (MA), Hampshire County Jail (MA), and in the Saxony Judicial System (Dresden, Germany). She is the director of Separate Sentence and Well Contested Sites, two dance/theater films which explore the experience of incarceration and its impact on family members and communities.

Reginold P. Daniels

Reginold P. Daniels is an author, performer, community activist, and social justice practitioner. His research focuses on critical pedagogy and transformative teaching; he views education as a means of liberation. Reggie’s performances include the play ManAlive and the films Well Contested Sites and Separate Sentence. He is a contributing author to the anthology Today I Gave Myself Permission to Dream: Race and Incarceration in America and his work has been featured on KQED’s Perspectives. Reggie teaches in the Performing Arts and Social Justice program and the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, both at the University of San Francisco. An alumnus of USF and a current EdD. candidate in the USF School of Education, he views the performing arts as an instrument of social justice.

Oona Hatton

Oona Hatton is Assistant Professor of Performance Studies at San José State University, where she teaches courses on devised performance, performance theory, ethnodrama, and the performance of race. She is a dramaturg, director, and playwright. Her play See You in My Dreams, adapted from the writing of solitary survivor Jack L. Morris, will be produced at the Hammer Theatre in San José in the spring of 2019. Dr. Hatton earned her PhD from the Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama program at Northwestern University and has published work in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, Theatre Research International, and Youth Theatre Journal.