Hometown: Honolulu, HI
Undergraduate: Stanford
Major: International Relations, Chinese

In a family of medical professionals, Ashley Tanaka's path could easily have veered into medicine. But as this tri-cultural first-year student knows, with all of the choices in life, sometimes one feels like a better fit. For her, culturally, that is Japanese, and law rather than medicine for her life's work. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Ashley is half Japanese, a quarter Chinese, and a quarter Korean. She enjoyed growing up with all three cultures, in a part of America with strong Asian-influence and many mixed people, but appreciated and related to Japanese culture the most. As for the "family business" (her father is a physician, her mother a nurse and her older sister is in medical school), Ashley admits that "medicine never struck a chord with me," and credits her parents for encouraging her to find her own passion. That passion, for law, began in her high school US History class thanks to an inspiring teacher who opened her eyes to the possibilities in law - "that people from any field could study law, and use it to stand up for others. From there, I began to believe in justice and pictured myself studying law so that I could help others less fortunate and less educated to understand their rights." Her undergrad studies included foreign languages, including Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and she one day hopes to pick up another language. Those multicultural interests will serve her well in her goal of pursuing international law, and she is thrilled that Pacific McGeorge offers "one of the strongest and most extensive international law programs in the country." In the future, Ashley envisions working for an international company or law firm in Japan or China, but ultimately, hopes to work within the fields of employment/labor rights and education law.