Ep 11: 'Inner Engineering' w Asena Tui'one

In 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 because I’m NOT the one,” type energy; the kind of person Colin wants his daughters to witness model humanity, and someone whose love of Bob Marley is rivaled only by her love of her family, be they blood or chosen. C is deeply honored to be amongst the chosen few! 

Asena Lillywater Tui'one, JD, MA (she/her) is a community advocate, policy strategist, and organizer committed to building equity and community power. She serves as Director of the Training Institute at the Center for Justice Innovation, in New York City, where she leads people-centered programs that foster collaboration, growth, and shared leadership. Raised in a Tongan immigrant household, Asena brings deep care, bold vision, and a justice-driven spirit to every space she enters—from education reform in the Bronx to policy advocacy across New York and California.

The Paper Plane is a podcast created and hosted by Colin Masashi Ehara, where he interviews people he is blessed and honored to share community with, and asks them about a book(s) 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 operate as a counter-narrative.

The Paper Plane is a space that intends to highlight the dire importance of relationships, community, dialogue, perpetual learning, honest expression as art, art as honest expression, and freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom. It speaks to planes of existence attached to the act of reading, but also as a metaphor for the “flights” we take as we sit in what Ta-Nehisi Coates calls “a one way interface” as readers, and how these “journeys” shape us...