Soji Kashiwagi has been the Executive Director and Playwright of the Grateful Crane Ensemble since its founding in 2001. As a playwright, Soji's works such as "The Camp Dance: The Music & The Memories" and "Nihonmachi: The Place to Be" have been seen nationally at JACL conventions in Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Chicago, and most recently at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Other works include "The J-Town Jazz Club," "Misora Hibari: A Tribute to a Legend," "Natsukashi no Kouhaku Uta Gassen" and the JA dysfunctional family comedy, "Garage Door Opener." Soji also wrote the scripts and Grateful Crane performed special presentations for the Go For Broke National Education Center's "Evening of Aloha" in 2013, and the Tuna Canyon Coalition's luncheon in 2017.

Internationally, Soji led Grateful Crane's Goodwill Tours to Tohoku, Japan in 2014 and 2016, where the group sang songs of hope for tsunami survivors living in temporary housing. Under his leadership, Grateful Crane has been recognized with a Bravo Award from the Asia America Symphony Association in 2010, the Daniel Inouye Leadership Award from the Cherry Blossom Festival of Southern California in 2011 and the 2016 Heritage Award from the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Chapters is a multi-part series concerning the history and the lessons of civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices carried out against communities or populations—including civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices that are perpetrated on the basis of an individual’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University and The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

Guest: Soji Kashiwagi
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: June 30, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

John Mills has changed the way we live with fire through his 501c3 non-profit organization Watch Duty. John spent many years in Silicon Valley focusing on underserved markets that had been overlooked by technologists. In 2012 he founded Zenput as CTO, focused on retail food services operations which was acquired in 2022. 

After living in San Francisco for 16 years, he moved off-the-grid to Sonoma County in 2020 where he was faced with the terrifying reality of life in the wildlands without the information needed to make informed decisions. Having developed software for over 30 years beginning at age 8, John found himself with a life or death problem he had to solve not only for himself, but for his community. 

He spent more than a year understanding the problems and then together, with his team, created Watch Duty in just 80 days. Today Watch Duty has a team of over 200 active and retired wildland firefighters, dispatchers, first responders, and reporters supporting millions of citizens and first responders who rely on the Watch Duty App across the American West to stay safe.

The Fire Problem is an education program that considers unresolved symptoms of The Fire Problem. This special podcast series will examine and explain underlying challenges and vulnerabilities with our climate, environment, politics, and vegetation. Conversations with conservationists, first responders, historians, politicians, scientists, technologists, tribal leaders, and more will help diagnose our situation with opportunities for treatment. Human influence is at the heart of The Fire Problem and our goal is to learn from past neglect and failure and plan for a future of education and prevention. 

Produced with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University with support from the Orange County Community Foundation.

Guest: John Mills
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: July 17, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Chessie Thacher is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, where she devotes her time to First Amendment issues, government transparency, criminal justice reforms, and voting rights litigation.   Prior to joining the ACLU, Chessie worked as an attorney at Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, a San Francisco-based law firm that focuses on high-stakes litigation and trials. While at the firm, Chessie developed a dynamic pro bono practice, partnering with the ACLU on several amicus briefs that advocated for criminal justice and immigration-related reforms. 

A graduate of Stanford Law School, Chessie won the school’s Deborah L. Rhode Public Interest award and was a Levin Center Public Interest Fellow. Chessie Thacher has provided additional resources below:

Know Your Rights - Free Speech at California Colleges and Universities

Know Your Rights - Campus Protests and More: Student Discipline at California Colleges and Universities

Chapters is a multi-part series concerning the history and the lessons of civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices carried out against communities or populations—including civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices that are perpetrated on the basis of an individual’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University and The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

Guest: Chessie Thacher
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: June 25, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Dr. Adwoa Opong is an Assistant Professor of History at Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University. Dr Opong earned a BA in history in the study of religions from the University of Ghana. She continued at the University of Ghana to pursue an MPhil in History, focusing on women’s organization and the nationalist struggles in Ghana. Adwoa received her PhD in History and also received her graduate certificate in the women, gender and sexuality studies program at Washington University. In addition to women and gender history, Adwoa has interests in the area of sexuality, postcolonial history and transnational feminism. She plans to broaden her study beyond Ghana in her examination of the professionalization of social work in post-colonial Africa.

Justin de Leon, Ph.D. is the director of the Ethnic Studies program at Chapman University and is a Senior Advisor for the Mediation Program for University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. De Leon earned his Ph.D. in international relations with a focus on feminist theory and indigeneity and is completing a book project entitled Resurgent Visual Sovereignty (University of Nebraska Press). His research focuses on Indigenous sovereignty and ontological security through storytelling and filmmaking. De Leon is exploring relational approaches to community-based filmmaking.

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Gender and Sexuality is a series that explores how culture, power, institutions, and social structures shape our understandings of gender and sexuality.

Guests: Dr. Adwoa Opong and Dr. Justin de Leon
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Past Forward in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.
Date recorded: June 18, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Takeo Rivera is a specialist in performance studies with a focus on race, sexuality, and gender in U.S. American cultural production. He is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Boston University.  His current project, Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity (Oxford University Press, April 2022) is focused on masochism and techno-orientalism in Asian American cultural production across multiple media, including theater, literature, graphic novels, historical archives, and video games.

Dr. Rivera is also a playwright whose plays have been staged in New York City, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His creative work explores race, masculinity, and sexuality at length. His play Goliath has been recognized by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest, and the Planet Connections Theater Festivity. He has also worked with Poetic Theater Productions, CompanyONE Theater and PlayGround San Francisco.

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Gender and Sexuality is a series that explores how culture, power, institutions, and social structures shape our understandings of gender and sexuality.

Guest: Takeo Rivera
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Past Forward in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.
Date recorded: May 08, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Abdi Soltani has served as the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California since 2009. During his tenure, he has pursued long-term priorities to deepen the ACLU’s presence in the California Central Valley and elevate the ACLU’s voice on state policy at the California state capitol. Through 2015, he co-chaired the Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy with then Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, where he helped draft the blueprint for safe and equitable legalization of marijuana in California. He has also worked on campaigns for racial justice, criminal justice reform, voting rights, and immigrants’ rights.

Abdi is a graduate of Stanford University. He was awarded the John Gardner Public Service Fellowship in 1995, the Gerbode Foundation Fellowship in 2002 and the Levi Strauss Foundation Pioneer in Justice Fellowship in 2010. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Pars Equality Center, the Statewide Leadership Council of the Public Policy Institute of California, and the Board of the San Francisco Foundation.

As an Iranian-American, Abdi is a champion of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, educating the public about its origins in the movement to abolish slavery and its impacts for equality and freedom for all of us.

Chapters is a multi-part series concerning the history and the lessons of civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices carried out against communities or populations—including civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices that are perpetrated on the basis of an individual’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University and The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

Guest: Abdi Soltani
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: April 04, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

John Fischer has served as director of the Normal Public Library since 2023. In this role, Fischer leads teams responsible for the educational, cultural, informational and recreational resources provided by the library to enrich the quality of life for Normal citizens. Fischer has worked in public libraries for more than 20 years, including time at Bloomington Public Library and St. Louis County Library.

Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. Libraries provide access to information and educational resources, promoting literacy, critical thinking skills, and community building by offering a safe space for people to learn, research, and connect with others. Join the conversation at Past Forward.

Guest: John Fischer
Produced by: Past Forward

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

David Weinstein has been Trust for Public Land’s Western Conservation Finance Director for a decade. He advises local and state governments throughout the Western United States on how to design, pass, and implement legislative initiatives and ballot measures that create funding for land and water conservation and climate-smart solutions. A Wyss Foundation Fellow and Coloradoan, David has been involved in conservation politics and policy for more than a decade, formerly working for Outdoor Industry Association, U.S. Senator Mark Udall, and on Colorado Governor Hickenlooper’s first gubernatorial campaign. He chaired the Board of Directors for the Montana Conservation Corps, and previously volunteered for Alaska Wilderness League and the National Parks Conservation Association. David lives in Bozeman, MT and is an avid backcountry skier, mountain biker, boater, angler, runner, backpacker, birder, and packrafter.

Hugh Coxe. As a project manager with Trust for Public Land, I identify and manage land protection projects that preserve open space of critical local, regional, and national importance in Southern California. Our land protection efforts focus on climate resilience, and I currently lead our California Wildfire Resilience program. Before joining TPL in 2020, I worked in land use and transportation planning and policy at both the local and state levels.

The Fire Problem is an education program that considers unresolved symptoms of The Fire Problem. This special podcast series will examine and explain underlying challenges and vulnerabilities with our climate, environment, politics, and vegetation. Conversations with conservationists, first responders, historians, politicians, scientists, technologists, tribal leaders, and more will help diagnose our situation with opportunities for treatment. Human influence is at the heart of The Fire Problem and our goal is to learn from past neglect and failure and plan for a future of education and prevention. 

Produced with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University with support from the Orange County Community Foundation.

Guests: David Weinstein and Hugh Coxe
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by: Past Forward
Date recorded: March 19, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Selicia Applegate is the Workshop Manager at Palatine Public Library. With over 10 years at the library, Selicia helped grow the department from a traditional tech support desk into a bustling makerspace that can run over 20 pieces of equipment at once—especially during the holidays.

“I focus on hands-on, inclusive learning experiences through our makerspace. In 2024, I was honored with the ILA Crosman Memorial Award for innovation, dedication, and leadership potential. One highlight has been creating programs like our community freedom quilt and later teaching other librarians how to replicate that outreach. I deeply believe that libraries and makerspaces are vital hubs that foster creativity, collaboration, and lifelong learning. When we pair access to tools and technology with a safe space for inclusive experimentation, we don’t just support personal growth—we help strengthen the entire community.”

Without Libraries was created to provide librarians a platform to share stories about education, discuss current programs, and consider life without libraries. Libraries provide access to information and educational resources, promoting literacy, critical thinking skills, and community building by offering a safe space for people to learn, research, and connect with others. Join the conversation at Past Forward.

Guest: Selicia Applegate
Produced by: Past Forward

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.

Micol Hebron is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes studio work, curating, writing, social media, crowd-sourcing, teaching, public-speaking, and both individual and collaborative projects. She has been engaged in individual and collaborative projects in Los Angeles since 1992. Hebron is an Associate Professor of Art at Chapman University; the founder/director of The Situation Room resource space for the creative community; the Gallery Tally Poster Project about gender equity in contemporary galleries; and the Digital Pasty/Gender Equity initiative for the internet.

In the past she has been the Chief Curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art; the director of the UCLA Summer Art Institute; an editorial board member at X-Tra magazine; an independent curator; a conservator at LACMA, and the co-founder of Gallery B-12 in Hollywood in the 90s. She has served on advisory boards at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Birch Creek Ranch Residency (Utah), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and UCLA.

She is the founder of the LA Art Girls, and the Co-Founder of Fontbron Academy. She employs strategies of consciousness-raising, collaboration, generosity, play, and participation to support and further feminist dialogues in art and life. Hebron has presented exhibitions, performances, and lectures at numerous international institutions.

Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Gender and Sexuality is a series that explores how culture, power, institutions, and social structures shape our understandings of gender and sexuality.

Guest: Micol Hebron
Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels
Produced by Past Forward in partnership with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.
Date recorded: March 12, 2025

Past Forward is providing this podcast as a public service. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please read our Program and Product Disclaimer for more information.