Tony Wallin-Sato

Tony Koji Wallin-Sato (he/him/they) is a multicultural Nisei writer and lecturer in the Critical, Race, Gender, and Sexuality Department at Cal Poly Humboldt. Wallin-Sato is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication at the University of Washington, Seattle, and holds an MFA from California State University, Long Beach, a BA in journalism with a minor in Religious Studies from Humboldt State (now Cal Poly Humboldt), and an AA in Journalism with a minor in Photography from Sacramento City College. During his undergrad at Humboldt, Wallin-Sato formed the campus’s first official Formerly Incarcerated Students Club (FISC) and co-founded the Project Rebound chapter on campus two years later. He served as the first Program Director for four years, establishing community support and services for returning community members, as well as currently-incarcerated youth and adults. Working alongside the College of the Redwoods Pelican Bay Scholars program, he helped create a bridge between the university and Pelican Bay State Prison. With the Project Rebound team and the Communication Department, they established the Pelican Bay BA Program; the first program on a level 4 yard in the country and the first Prison Education Program (PEP) in the nation to receive the PELL Grant. After the first semester of the Pelican Bay BA Program was launched, Wallin-Sato was hired by California State University, Long Beach to build a Prison Education Program with a federal institution. His application to the BOP was the first in the state to be accepted, and currently, California State University, Long Beach, is WASC-approved and waiting for the PEP to be approved by the DOE. 

Wallin-Sato’s scholarly publication includes Mentoring Formerly Incarcerated College Students: Desistance Lessons from Project Rebound (Wallin-Sato, T. Binnall, J., 2024)

Wallin-Sato’s creative publications include Deadend Road No Turnaround (forthcoming from Kaya Press, 2026), Okaerinasai (Wet Cement Press, 2024), Bamboo on the Tracks: Sakura Snow and Colt Peacemaker (Finishing Line Press, 2024), and Hyouhakusha: Desolate Travels of a Junkie on the Road (Cold River Press, 2022). His poetry, essays, and stories are published in over a dozen national and international print and online publications.

Wallin-Sato is also an in-prison teaching artist with the William James Association, an Advisory member for IthakaS+R College and Community Partnerships for Reentry and an Advisory Board for the American Prison Newspaper Project.

His research interests include Lived Experiences of Incarceration, Abolition studies, Race, Gender, and Radical Political Thought, Anarchy.