Her name is more than a pronoun

All in a Name – Jalia Her

March 1, 2022

As a child, Her learned to accept her name with pride.

Jalia Her knows that her last name is unusual in some cultures, but it is most common among Hmong families. According to https://forebears.io, “the surname Her is the 204,158th most widespread surname worldwide, borne by approximately 1 in 3,579,345 people.”

When people hear Her’s last name, they sometimes make fun of it, but others are just curious. It is obvious that her brother Dylan, who graduated in 2021 would share it, as would her younger siblings, who will be part of the Armijo community a few years from now. Once, though, she heard about another student who shared her last name. “There were a bunch of girls that kept asking me if I knew this guy named Benjamin. I always felt awkward to say no to them. I don’t even know how they knew my last name,” she said.

“One clever thing is that someone would ask, ‘What’s her last name?’ and they wouldn’t know. Then they’d say, ‘Her last name is Her.’ The look on their face was priceless,” she said. “Then they would go onto asking me questions.”

Her has had fun with her unusual last name with those who know her, too. “I had a close friend that would call me by my last name and I would do the same to them. It would make sense if you were there.”

She has also played with her first name. “My family has been calling me Lia, short for Jalia,” she said. “In elementary school this group of popular kids gave me the nickname of ‘Jayjay’ so that has stuck with me since then and I’ve shortened it to “Jay”.

Her future is being developed in the present.

She has taken ownership of her name and would encourage others to do the same. “Don’t be ashamed of your name whether it’s your first, middle, or last name,” said Her.

As a student, Her has been very involved at Armijo, although she has found that wearing masks have made sports and dances less enjoyable. She’s played volleyball during her sophomore and junior years and is currently in the Multimedia Academy.

She recently attended a SkillsUSA conference with Multimedia where she earned a gold medal in Television (Video) Production. “I don’t know where I want to go to college but what I do know is that I want to be in the filming industry whether it be acting, directing, camera work, or editing,” she said.