Here's the story of how an ethnic slur was turned to use for the greater good.
The ethnic slur stung Yu Jin Emily Choi after her friends at Blair Academy explained why two senior boys at their private high school were laughing.
It was toward the end of her freshman year in 2013, when she was called a "chink'' and tried to go on as if it didn't happen. Emily, a South Korean immigrant, was trying to fit in, pretending to understand every English word, even though her speech was choppy.
"I was trying to Americanize myself,'' said Emily, an international student who is now a 20-year-old senior.
The insult initially went over her head, but Emily used the embarrassing experience for a greater good, drawing top honors this year from the Princeton Prize in Race Relations for the Northern New Jersey Committee.
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Twelve were recognized in New Jersey for confronting racial issues, but Emily's work stood out, and she was selected to join 27 other Princeton Prize winners from across the country at a leadership symposium held last weekend at Princeton. She also won $1,000.
Over the past two years, Emily had become a beacon for diversity and racial harmony at Blair. She helped students, who are mostly white and affluent, connect with Latino immigrants who work as housekeepers at the school and live in the surrounding community.
"Having a diverse group of people is one thing, but embracing diversity is something very different,'' Emily said. "I noticed that they (housekeepers) were not being recognized as part of our community, which is how I felt when I first came to the United States.''
Emily became their friend, striking up a conversation one day in Spanish, a language she loves and has been learning since middle school.
"I always tell people that the only way to learn someone's culture and to approach them is to speak their language,'' Emily said.
She befriended many of the workers, including Maria-Fernanda Pinto, who told Emily in Spanish that she was surprised to see someone like her from an Asian country speak Spanish so well.
"It makes her happy to see that there are charismatic people from other countries who are interested in their culture,'' said Emily, explaining Fernanda's feelings.
Emily began introducing Latino employees to students by telling their stories through a column she wrote in Spanish for the Blair Oracle, the online school newspaper.
Everyone at school -- students, faculty and Latino employees -- could enjoy her pieces about the immigrants and events at school. Its editor, 17-year-old Tys Sweeney, said there was a tab that Blair students could use to read the English translation.
"She put in a lot of energy reminding people to be inclusive and communicative,'' said Tys.
Engaging her fellow students didn't stop at deadline nor when class ended at the private school in Blairstown Township.
With the help of her faculty adviser, Joyce Lang, Emily started La Conexion, an organization of Blair students who tutored Latino children with their homework once a week in Newton.
"The language barrier was taken down to some degree when Emily wrote and gave voice to some of those on the housekeeping staff,'' Lang said. "I think giving voice is a critical component to inspiring a better understanding in a community.''
Emily is modest about her work, choosing to deflect from her well-deserved accomplishments. For example, one of her teachers, whom she introduced me to in the hall, didn't know Emily had won the Princeton Prize.
And Lang "was completely unaware" that Emily volunteered last summer to work with organizations helping immigrants in Elizabeth and Palisades Park.
One of the groups, Make the Road New Jersey in Elizabeth, focused on immigration issues for Latinos. Imagine that for a moment: A Spanish-speaking high school Korean immigrant greeting Latino people she had never met and speaking to them in fluent Spanish.
It worked.
She helped collect signatures in a campaign to get undocumented workers a driver's license. From those relationships, she started the blog Mis Amigos Inmigrantes, which told their stories about why they came to the United States.
She ate their food, even learned to do Latin dances -- merengue and bachata.
"I just love their culture, and want to continue fighting for their rights,'' Emily said.
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Her immersion into Latino culture was thorough. She had given a speech at school about her racial experiences in America, and how at one point she nearly lost her own identity trying to assimilate to be accepted.
"It took me a while to be proud of where I came from and to be confident with who I am,'' she said.
She placed second for a speech on humanitarian issues, but didn't keep the $1,000 prize. Emily used it to help classmates attend the People of Color conference last December in Atlanta, where young people from around the country talked about diversity and bias.
Emily also gave a Ted Talk about Latin American diversity in the U.S.
At Blair, Emily then helped organize a Martin Luther King Jr. seminar that showed students how social identifiers such as gender, religion and income can influence how they might think about people who are different from them.
Alecia Mund, 17, said she understood how low wages affected Latino children that she and her classmates were tutoring.
"They don't have the same resources that a lot of us have at our school,'' she said. "Even though we can't completely change their lives, we to try to brighten up their day.''
Wining the Princeton Prize was not on Emily's agenda. She just wanted to attend its symposium on diversity, but realized she had to apply and win the competition.
"They chose me,'' Emily said. "That's crazy.
No it's not.
And neither is her future.
In the fall, she'll head to Stanford University to major in Spanish and Latin American studies.
Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or http://connect.nj.com/user/bcarter/posts.html
or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL