台北美國學校
Born in the United States to Joseph and Nellie Arrigo, she went to Taiwan as a teenager in 1963 with her father, formerly a United States Army logistics officer who was assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Taiwan. Arrigo attended Taipei American School and after graduating as valedictorian in 1966, eloped with her Taiwanese-American husband, George Chen, to the U.S. in 1968. She received her undergraduate degree in 1972 from the University of California, San Diego. She then attended Stanford University and obtained a master's degree in Anthropology in 1976 after ideological disagreements with her advisors there.