Risa Takenaka is someone I admire deeply for so many reasons, one being her uplifting and energetic spirit. In 2019, she graduated from Providence College with a degree in Physics and minor in philosophy, and continued her educational journey at the University of Notre Dame, receiving her Masters in Entrepreneurship, Technology & Innovation in 2020. She had written and publicly shared an extremely powerful article shedding light on her personal experience of being born in Japan and growing up in America(linked below). I commend her for her courage to stand up and voice her opinion on a topic that isn’t always talked about openly. In this episode, Risa shares her knowledge and experience of growing up in a primarily white community, her journey of coming to terms with her cultural identity, cross cultural values, generational cultural differences, and where she is now as a 24 year old paving her path to success and fulfillment. I had the pleasure and opportunity to sit down to listen and learn and I hope you can take away as much as I did from this episode. 

Risa’s article: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/whitewash-the-story-of-asian-american-history-2550e236a5ef

Resources Mentioned : https://www.instagram.com/redcanarysong/?hl=en

Free Resources mentioned : 

https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/resource/korematsu-civil-liberties/

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/may/6

Articles provided by Risa: 

https://aaww.org/yellow-peril-scapegoating/

https://aatimeline.com/intro

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/asian-americans-and-moments-in-peoples-history/