tran pham interviewed by the times

Thuy Nguyen, a 16-year-old junior at Park View High School in Sterling, has watched the recent transformation. She moved with her family to Virginia from Vietnam when she was 9 years old, and recalls that most of her fifth-grade classmates were white.

"I was new, afraid, and I didn't speak very well English," Ms. Nguyen said. "I didn't talk to anybody." Six years later she says making friends is easier.

"What I like about a diverse school is that you don?t feel intimidated if there are other races," she said. "I'm jumping around, talking to the Caucasian clique and the Middle Eastern clique. I have friends from El Salvador, Mexico, Peru -- one girl is half Korean and half Puerto Rican, she's cool -- and from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan.

"There's a girl from Bangladesh; we tell each other everything. I also knew a Swedish guy. He happened to be very hot. So I talk to all the different groups. I don't want it to be, like, 'You're just in the Asian clique.' "link