RISE Co-op

06/02/2026

📣GSA In the Park hosted by Central Texas Pride Community Center 🌈

Central Texas Pride Community Center has created a space for q***r and ally youth ages 10-17 to meet up in a space that is welcoming, relaxed, and safe They encourage the youth to make friends, hang out, and just be their authentic selves.

If you’d like more information about the GSA meet ups, follow them on their FB page.



[Image credit: CTPC]

06/02/2026

🌈Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

This month, we celebrate the resilience, identity, and achievements of the LGBTQIA+ community. At the same time, it’s important to recognize the challenges many still face today-from rising anti-LGBTQ+ laws and discrimination in parts of the world to ongoing violence and threats to basic rights. ⚖ ⚖

Despite these setbacks, progress continues. LGBTQIA+ voices are louder and stronger than ever.

📣🏳️‍🌈As we honor those who paved the way and those still fighting, let’s stand together in support and solidarity. Pride is a reminder to keep working toward a world where everyone can live authentically, freely, and with pride.



[Image credit: Google]

05/29/2026

🌙 MOON SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT 🌙

We are deeply grateful for Robyne and The Kinstructure Company LLC for sponsoring our Celestial Prom as a Moon Sponsor. 💫

Robyne has been a supporter of our co-op for years, and we are so thankful for the care, consistency, and community spirit she has poured into our space. Through her Louisiana heritage preservation and genealogy work, she helps people reconnect with their roots, preserve family stories, and strengthen the ties that keep community alive. 💛

From guided heritage discovery to custom family tree artwork and the Kinstructure Kinnect directory, her work is centered on legacy, belonging, and connection. We are honored to celebrate her support and grateful to have her as part of this special event.

Celestial Prom | May 30th
[Image Credit: The Kinstructure Company]

05/28/2026

💥AANHPI Heritage History: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands🌺

Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands, carries a history marked by war, loss, survival, and rebuilding. After the Battle of Saipan opened the way, U.S. forces invaded Tinian on July 24, 1944, and transformed the island into a military stronghold. From North Field, the bombers that carried the atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki took flight, forever tying Tinian to one of the most devastating acts of destruction in world history.💣

But Tinian’s story is not only about war. It is also about Chamorro ancestral land, and the displacement of the Chamorro people whose homes, sacred places, and community ties were deeply disrupted. Families were uprooted, land was seized, and an island that held living culture was reshaped by military power.✈

That displacement did not end there. Chamorro people continue to live with the legacy of being pushed from ancestral lands, including on other islands where military expansion and occupation have also limited access, belonging, and return. Their history is not something safely tucked in the past — it is still unfolding today.

When we remember Tinian, we must honor both the devastation it carried and the strength of the people connected to it. Their history deserves to be seen, honored, and never forgotten. As we honor AANHPI Heritage, we remember Tinian and the Chamorro people whose homeland holds a legacy that deserves to be seen, taught, and respected.



[Image Credit: Google]

05/28/2026

Free to Read Thursday: Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki 🎻🍩🚀

This week’s Free to Read Thursday pick is Light from Uncommon Stars* by Ryka Aoki, a Japanese American trans writer, poet, composer, and teacher whose work has been honored by Lambda Literary Awards and other major prizes. This genre-blending adult novel follows three women in California’s San Gabriel Valley: Shizuka, a famous violin teacher who made a deal with the devil; Katrina, a young trans runaway and violinist; and Lan, an alien refugee running a donut shop with her family. As their lives intertwine, the story weaves together cursed violins, q***r love, donuts, and questions of identity, survival, and chosen family.

Readers should pick this up if they’re hungry for joyfully q***r, deeply human science-fantasy that doesn’t look away from transmisogyny, racism, and abuse but still insists on hope, music, and community. Aoki centers a young trans Asian American girl as a complex, gifted protagonist, and fills the book with q***r characters and relationships, while also asking big questions about what makes a life worth living, who gets to be called “talented,” and how marginalized people create home in hostile worlds.
You can pick up a copy of Light from Uncommon Stars* by checking if it’s available at your local library or by ordering it from your favorite independent bookstore.



[image credit: Google]

05/27/2026

🖥️ STEAM Wednesday: Gitanjali Rao 🏆

At just 20 years old, Gitanjali Rao is already an MIT student, inventor, author, and STEM advocate. At her young age, she has already won multiple awards and patented multiple inventions including:

Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science (2019)
EPA Presidential Award for her lead detection device
Tethys — Portable device detecting lead in water (inspired by Flint water crisis)
Kindly — AI app detecting cyberbullying (partnered with UNICEF for global rollout)

"You don't have to wait until you're older to make a difference." — Gitanjali Rao

It's nice to meet you. I'm 20 years old and a student at MIT, Cambridge. My goal is to create global change by starting an innovation movement of teens looking to make a difference. 

05/27/2026

🔎AANHPI Heritage History: Dr. Seuss📖

Dr. Seuss is widely known as a children’s author, but some of his work included racist anti-Asian imagery and World War II propaganda targeting Japanese people. During the same era, Japanese Americans were being forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps, and media like this helped reinforce harmful stereotypes that portrayed Asian people as threats or outsiders.

🚨Propaganda and racist imagery do not exist in a vacuum. The way groups of people are portrayed in the media influences how the public sees them, treats them, and responds to injustice against them. When stereotypes are repeated often enough, they start to feel “normal,” even when they cause real harm. For Japanese Americans, this was part of a larger climate of dehumanization that supported exclusion, incarceration, and trauma.

That is one reason we prioritize own-voice books, authors, and sources when teaching about minority groups and histories. We want children to learn from voices rooted in the communities being discussed, so they receive fuller, more truthful, and more respectful understanding.

🚨We are not sharing this to shame families for books they may already own or have enjoyed. We are sharing it to encourage deeper awareness, critical thinking, and thoughtful conversations about whose stories are centered and why.

[Image Credit: Asian-Pacific Journal (apjjf.org)]

05/26/2026

🌟 GALAXY SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT 🌟

It is an honor and privilege to recognize Daya Educational Consulting and its founder, Karishma, as a Galaxy Sponsor of our R.I.S.E. Celestial Prom.💛

“Daya” means compassion in Hindi—and it was also the name of Karishma’s Ajji (paternal grandmother), who shaped her understanding of what it means to truly show up for children with care, presence, and love. 🌙 Karishma carries her Ajji’s legacy forward in everything she does through Daya Educational Consulting.

As a homeschool parent, educator, and community builder, Karishma has helped nurture a strong, supportive network of families, guiding them to create learning paths that truly fit their children.

Thank you, Karishma, for your generosity and for the heart you pour into our community. Because of you, this prom will be filled with belonging, joy, and love. ✨

Celestial Prom | May 30th

05/25/2026

⚖The 1901 Insular Cases — Putting the Legal Spin on the 1898 Territories Paradox

The 1898 Territories Paradox created a legal problem: if the U.S. flag now flew over the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaiʻi, could the people there claim full constitutional rights? In 1901, the U.S. Supreme Court answered with the Insular Cases—a legal trick that made empire possible without rights.

The Court invented “unincorporated territories”—places that belong to the U.S. but are not fully part of it. In these territories, the full Constitution does not automatically apply. People have “fundamental rights,” but not full procedural or political rights like jury trial or the right to vote for President.

This is how the Insular Cases went hand in hand with the 1898 Territories Paradox:

🔎Paradox: “We want the empire but not the responsibility.”
💼Insular Cases: “Here’s the legal language that makes that permanent.”

Scholars call this “legal racism”—a doctrine that used race and “civilization” to justify second‑class status for Pacific and Caribbean peoples. In 2026, this still shapes how U.S. territories and AANHPI communities live under a system that was never built for them to be equal.

AANHPI Month is the time to ask: “Who is still left out by the legal logic of 1898 and 1901—and what would it look like to change that?”



[Image Credit: Google]

05/25/2026

Mindful Monday 🌱

As we close out Mental Health Awareness Month, let’s focus on building small, lasting habits of care in our homeschool routines.

Try adding one mindful moment each day:
A quiet reading break
A short walk outside
A few deep breaths between lessons

These small pauses can make a big difference—for both you and your child.

Wellness is something we can grow together.



[image credit: Google]