Upon her parents' divorce, Hanna returned to Portland and attended Lincoln High School. After high school, she relocated from Portland to Olympia, Washington, to attend The Evergreen State College in the late 1980s. During this time she worked as a stripper to pay her tuition. "My parents didn't go to college. I felt lucky attend." While at Evergreen, with fellow student and photographer Aaron Baush-Greene, she set up a photo exhibit featuring the pair's photography, which dealt with sexism, violence against women, and AIDS – issues that were heightened for Hanna when she volunteered for SafePlace, a domestic violence organization. However, the school administrators took the photos down before they had the chance to be viewed, an act of censorship that prompted what Hanna refers to as her "first foray into activism": the creation of Reko Muse, an independent feminist art gallery, with friends Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland.