Story
Born in Ahmedabad, India, Riana Shah was 14 when she moved to Queens, NY with her mother and little sister. They came to America in pursuit of intellectual independence through a better education. While the first few years of immigrant life was challenging as Riana and her family grappled with socio-economic insecurity, Riana was shaped greatly by the educational opportunities she received.
As a pupil of an authoritarian, rote-memorization-based education system in India, Riana grew up being told that there was a right and wrong answer. The “right” answer was always the one in the back of the textbook, and she and her peers were discouraged from developing their own opinions. Riana’s educational upbringing led her to believe that she was a passive bystander in the injustices she saw happening in Ahmedabad. It wasn’t until she began attending a progressive NYC school called Bard High School Early College upon their move to America that she felt empowered to begin to think critically about society. She began to question gender roles, economic structures, racial injustice, and traditional education systems, and became an active agent for social change.