4 Asian High School Students Stand Up to Their White Classmates in an Epic Yearbook Stunt

[KamaAina]

Now here's a yearbook stunt I can get behind!

https://www.yahoo.com/style/4-asian-high-school-students-185900411.html

You wouldn't ask everyone with the last name Smith if they were related, would you?

Four students sharing the last name Nguyen were evidently so fed up with fielding this question that they joined forces for a combined yearbook quote to get their point across to classmates.

In lieu of a quote or list of extracurriculars was a four-word message spread out below the consecutive portraits:

The stunt echoed an almost identical one eight students at San Jose's Presentation High School — also Nguyens — pulled in 2012. The message that time: "We know what you're thinking, and no, we're not related!"

[Sanity Claws]

1. Yes, great stunt

The girls in the first photo are wearing the same top; it must be a uniform. Yuck! I hated my white shirt and plaid skirt when I was in high school but those uniforms are far worse.

[HassleCat]

2. Americans don't realize

Certain last names perpetuate and "stamp out" competing last names in some countries. This doesn't happen in the US, except in some isolated rural communities, so we think everybody from India must be related because they're all named Patel or Singh.

[KamaAina]

4. Most Sikhs are named Singh

but your average vulgar talking yam supporter wouldn't know that.

[hifiguy]

38. A law school friend of mine was a Sikh but he wasn't named Singh.

He was an Ahluwahlia. Great guy. Sounded like a So Cal surfer dude.

[KamaAina]

39. How in hell do you surf with a turban on?

And keep it on when you wipe out?

[oberliner]

44. Yes he was

Last edited Sat Feb 6, 2016, 01:31 PM - Edit history (1)

All male Sikhs are named Singh, either as a middle name or surname. That is one of the tenets of the religion and its egalitarianism.

Most likely, your friend was Singh Ahluwahlia.

[IDemo]

48. *tenet*

Unless all of those Singhs are also renters.

[oberliner]

49. Thanks!

I blame auto-correct and/or bad eyesight.

[hfojvt]

27. actually they probably are related

all of humanity is, after all.

Do you know how much crap I take because my name is Koch?

After all, I MUST thereby be related to the billionaires.

It's kind of an obvious question though even if you meet two people who are Millers, or Johnsons or Williamses or Campbells.

Some times people do not even realize it, or it becomes forgotten. My grandmother was from the Sauk City area. People around there used to say about her brother "he is not related to the other Gassers." Except they were wrong, but also not wrong. Most of the "other" Gassers were descended from Jacob. My grandmother, however, was descended from Jacob's little brother George. But the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Jacob basically forgot about their 2nd and 3rd cousins, and no longer acknowledged (or knew about) the relationship.

My grandmother knew. I know because she lived with Florian Gasser while going to high school. I asked if he was a relative, and she said "2nd or 3rd cousin". He was a 2nd cousin once removed, so she knew, but the older people do not pass that info on to their kids. So their kids are unaware that they might be 3rd or 4th or 5th cousins.

Of course, they also might not be as in nearby Reedsburg and Boscobel there is a Gasser Hardware and the ancestors of those people came from Alsace, and not Switzerland. Still the chances are very good that if you could take my grandmother and trace her complete ancestry back ten generations that there would be a connection to the Hardware store family as well.

[KamaAina]

40. I'd seriously consider changing it if I were you

To Soros, perhaps?

[Odin2005]

34. IIRC many Indian surnames are associated with particular castes.

[TipTok]

3. Title comes off as much more antagonistic and aggressive...

... than the actual article.

[Dr. Strange]

54. That's how (many) websites get their clicks.

[TipTok]

55. I occasionally wonder...

... about folks who write such things.

Did they go into their careers with ideas of journalistic integrity and then went down a slippery slope to the equivalent of street lamp prostitutes with a word processor or did they start that way and assume that's what journalism is nowadays...

[yuiyoshida]

5. omg they are just so CUTE

I miss my Viet sisters from high school!!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. better than my high school yearbook,

We had eleven Vietnamese girls with the exact same first and last name all in the same grade.

[phylny]

7. I get it, but honestly -

If there were four kids - Amanda Rossi, Vincent Rossi, Carlotta Rossi, and John Rossi - in my graduating class and I didn't grow up with them and didn't know, I'd ask them if they were related.

Rossi, btw, is one of the most, if not the most common Italian surnames.

[Skittles]

11. agreed

if the implication is that it is racist to wonder if two people with the same surname are related, that is utter nonsense

[Go Vols]

26. agree

[Warpy]

28. Around here, it's Baca and Chavez

Nobody asks them, either.

The reason the Asian kids get it is because of the "you all look alike to me" mindset. In a predominantly Asian school, the 4 Rossi kids might have been asked if they were related.

[phylny]

30. Maybe so.

I know in my school, way back in the 70s, with a predominantly Italian, Jewish, and Irish population, two people I know who were not related, but had the last name "Pagano" referred to each other as "My brother"/"My sister" because so many people asked them if they were related. Funny, too, because they looked nothing alike. He was blond/blue-eyed and she was brunette/brown eyed - totally different features, too

[romanic]

8. Title is clear click/racebait.

But the article is definitely sound. I remember in my high school we had several Chinese students with "Wu" as their last names in the same grade. I remember they were referred to as the "Wu Tang Clang"or something idiotic.

[oberliner]

46. Agreed

Headline is a BS lie to generate clicks.

[linuxman]

9. Nice race bait.

The article literally mentioned nothing about standing up to anyone, let alone DU's arch nemesis, WHITE PEOPLE!

Seemed like they did it in good fun. I didn't see the need to turn this into a 'stickin' it to whitey' piece of clickbait.

It's not uncommon to have people wonder if you're related based on a common last name when enrolled at the same school.

[LanternWaste]

13. You are indeed a poor, oppressed little fella...

"DU's arch nemesis, WHITE PEOPLE! "

Oh dear. You are indeed a poor, oppressed little fella...

"It's not uncommon to have people wonder if you're related based on a common last name when enrolled at the same school..."

Odd that... my last name is Smith and I was never asked if I was related to any others Smiths in my high school. However, they most likely realized the concept of Balance of Probabilities while you don't.

[linuxman]

19. Never said I was oppressed, but hey, nice attempt at reading comprehension.

Would you agree that nguyen isn't quit as common as smith, or do you not understand the concept of balance of probabilities?

I await your standard verbose, passive agressive reply.

Try to learn what a tounge-in-cheek comment is.

[Eleanors38]

22. Wrong. Linuxman is right. This is "Lesworm" (LSWRM) bait...

Liberal Straight White Racist Male.

I listed All the attributes to perfect the nemesis.

[pnwmom]

32. I think most people know how common Smith is. However, I had a much less common

name, and when we moved into our town, I was frequently asked if we were related to that other family . . . except their name was pronounced the same but spelled differently.

I think this is almost a universal experience. People want to make connections.

[RandiFan1290]

10. Trolls are whining!

Love it!

[The2ndWheel]

12. What an awful headline

The photo, posted to Reddit on Wednesday, didn't provide any context, but collected thousands of upvotes.

It provided no context, so it goes right to standing up to white classmates?

And yes, I'm sure many people with the last name Smith have been asked if they were related to someone else with the last name Smith. Most likely, in an innocent way.

Are you related to Bob Smith?

Yes? No way! I know that guy! Maybe we should hang out.

No? Oh, sorry, I was just trying to make conversation with another human being. Maybe we should hang out.

Standing up to white classmates? How is that to go-to? The world doesn't revolve around white people, except when it does, I guess.

[hfojvt]

31. it's the liberal way

to be a good liberal you are supposed to hate white people, even, or maybe especially, if you are white.

The only good white person is one who hates white people.

Because white people are always bad, except the ones who hate white people, and even lots of them are bad too. Sometimes even they forget to apologize every hour for the sin of being born white, and for every bad thing ever done by a white person.

[roguevalley]

14. Beautiful and smart and funny. LOL! THat is so cute

[Brickbat]

15. Lotta butthurt on this thread.

[KamaAina]

16. Srsly.

[Eleanors38]

23. Lswrm.

[snooper2]

17. They should have put it's pronounced, "When" also, just for completeness

[KamaAina]

18. More like "nwhen"

I say it quite a lot. In addition to the two city councilmembers, my primary care physician is Dr. Nguyen.

[Hekate]

20. My first friend in California when I moved here in 1979 was named Nguyen. I practiced it hard...

....because I hate mispronouncing someone's name. She said N'win. Later she and her husband moved to Orange County.

Now we have a young local tv reporter named Nguyen, who pronounces her name Nu-yen. It's now been a couple of generations -- assimilation takes many forms, including changes in pronunciation of one's ancestral name.

When the Eastern Europeans flooded in a century ago, the very spelling of their names often changed at Ellis Island, so at least the Nguyen, Singh, and Patel clans don't have to put up with that.

[Initech]

21. That rules.

[TacoD]

24. Wiki sez: By some estimates, forty percent of Vietnamese people have this surname (nt)

[hifiguy]

25. Nguyen is as common a Vietnamese

family name as Anderson/sen or Peterson is among MN's Scandihoovians.

Good on those girls, though. Great prank.

[Odin2005]

35. IIRC "Hansen" is the most common surname in many parts of rural NW Minnesota.

Oddly enough, my town (Ulen, MN) didn't have a lot of Hansens, The Norwegian families there tended to come from western Norway and have a lot of place-name based surnames, my own (Seljeset) is an example.

[hifiguy]

36. I had an uncle Cliff Hanson.

All of my mom's 100% German sisters, from Norman County MN, married Scandinavians. An Olsen, a Hanson and a Strand. Uff da. That passed for a semi-mixed marriage in those days. At least they were all Lutherans! There's such a thing as going too far, ya know, dere. My dad was mostly German with a little Scots/Irish.

[hfojvt]

29. I don't know why somebody thinks they need to "stand up"

Many of those girls are very pretty. As such, my bet is that they were popular with most of their white classmates.

Like it is a big insult if somebody wonders if two people named Miller are related to each other.

Also, my bet is if they could all trace their ancestry back ten generations they would find out that they ARE, in fact, related.

So far, I found out that one of my classmates is a 7th cousin. Even funnier, one of my sister's ex-boyfriends is an 8th cousin. He's actually related TEN ways and we have 7 common ancestors.

[Odin2005]

33. Literally an Epic Nguyen, so to speak!

That is awesome!

[hifiguy]

37. Well played!

[Odin2005]

41. Couldn't resist, seemed so obvious!

[oberliner]

42. There is no way that Madeline and Angela are not related

They practically look like twins.

[hifiguy]

43. They really do.

Like the same girl photographed from different angles.

[oberliner]

45. Turns out they are twins!

"We know what you're thinking, and, no, we're not related," read their shared senior quote. (A lie: Two of the Nguyens are, in fact, twin sisters).

http://gawker.com/5911937/meet-the-ladies-behind-the-nguyeninningest-yearbook-quote-of-all-time

[linuxman]

52. I don't know.

Sounds like more racist white bs.

[The2ndWheel]

53. That, and it's an all-girls Cathothic school?

So the headline in the OP and article are even dumber than at first sight. Not only was it obviously just a funny little joke, and it is, but I doubt the standing up to their white classmates headline was directed toward a bunch of white girls. Such a stupid headline.

[Liberal_in_LA]

47. Hilarious

[kwassa]

50. 50 % of Vietnamese have the name Nguyen.

Also the name of the royal family.

Or so I was told by the Vietnamese I worked with in a refugee program.

[AngryAmish]

51. The last dynasty of Vietnam was Nguyan

In Vietnam people change their names to match up with the current dynasty...because if you had a the same name as an old dynasty they might kill you.