“Do you know what a frog is?” Kimi Pu, 9, asks her dad with a grin, pointing at a fork. “Frog?” he repeats, sheepish but smiling. “Frog’ is an animal—this is a fork.” “Fork! Sorry!” he says. “Great ...

Eleventh-grader My-Linh Thai sat with her guidance counselor at Federal Way High, Vietnamese-English dictionary in her bag. “I want to go to the University of Washington and become a doctor,” she said ...