The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Monday, September 16, 2019— 3A

 
This 
summer, 
I 
studied 
abroad for 3 months in Prague, 
Czech Republic. I knew I 
wanted to do this program 
before 
I 
even 
started 
my 
freshman year at the University 
of 
Michigan, 
so 
this 
was 
really exciting for me. Aside 
from Prague, I also had the 
opportunity to visit other small 
cities in the Czech Republic, 
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, 
Hungary, and Austria. It was a 
great experience to be able to go 
to local events, immerse myself 
in different cultures and meet 
people abroad who I wouldn’t 
normally have run into in my 
hometown in New Jersey or at 
school in Ann Arbor. 
 
That being said, I 
soon began to realize that as 
an 
Asian-American 
girl 
in 
Europe, I was a “rare breed.” 
That meant that I was getting 
a lot of stares while just going 
about my day, minding my own 
business. This is something I’ve 
experienced heavily in China as 
well, but the context in Europe 
was totally different. In China, 
people stared at me because I 
looked Westernized, American 
(or at least I presume) –– they 
knew I wasn’t “one of them”. 
In Prague, people stared at me 
in a fetishizing, she’s-so-exotic 

way. 
This was very surprising to 
me given what people told me 
about the sizeable Vietnamese 
population in Prague, and the 
fact that most of Prague’s mini 
marts, Asian restaurants and 
nail salons were run by Asian 
people. So my first thought was, 
Of course they’ve seen Asians. 
But I guess it’s different when 
it’s an Asian who is firstly, 
American (or doesn’t speak 
Czech) 
and 
secondly, 
who 
does not work in their service 
industry. Often times I would 
be 
heard 
speaking 
perfect 
English in a perfect American 
accent, and still get asked if 
I was from Asi –– and not be 
believed when I said I was from 
the states. Men would fetishize 
me 
because 
they’d 
“gotten 
sick of seeing white European 
girls all the time” and I was 
“different.” 
 
If there was one thing 
I learned from my time in 
Europe, it was that Europeans 
don’t view race in the same 
way Americans do –– and this 
makes sense, given how racially 
homogenous countries like the 
Czech Republic are. In Europe, 
the distinction is based more 
heavily instead on nationality. 
I noticed that Czech people had 
clear distinctions on who was 
Czech and who was Slovakian 
or Slovenian –– even within 
the country itself, there seemed 

to be a split between Bohemia 
and Moravia, the two main 
regions of the Czech Republic. 
So in a sense, Europeans 
were seemingly “color-blind” 
and didn’t realize it could 
be harmful to ignore race, 
especially in my experience. 
The distinction was much more 
heavily based on ethnicity and 
nationality, so it was confusing 
for many Europeans when I 
told them I was American when 
I am a person of East Asian 
descent. 
While I had some awkward 
run-ins with this, it gave me a 
broader sense of how people 
from other countries view race 
and identity –– and not all of it 
was ignorant. Some Vietnamese 
shop 
owners 
would 
speak 
to me in Czech and ask me 
where I was from because they 
were excited to see another 
familiar face in the city, and 
others would ask me about 
my experiences in America. 
Overall, studying abroad didn’t 
“change my life” in the cliché 
way, but it definitely enriched 
my life. Though the experience 
wasn’t perfect, I do have that 
special place for Central Europe 
in my heart and have gotten 
better with leaning into slight 
discomfort by attempting to 
learn Czech and pushing myself 
to take more of an initiative 
with things I wouldn’t normally 
think of doing back home. 

ANGELA ZHANG
MiC Columnist

Race and identity 
abroad

1

2

There were two women in the 
fitting room who were targeted 
by a manager as potential thieves 
in the store (Anthropologie 
likes to refer to them as “Nick” 
and “Nicky”). I interacted with 
them, and another employee, 

who didn’t interact with them, 
asked me what race they were. 
When I asked, “Why does that 
matter?” she replied that Black 
and Hispanic women were more 
likely to steal.

3

One woman complained that 
the new plus-size section was 
taking up too much space in the 
store and lowered the clothing 

options of the “regular” or 
“standard” (as Anthropologie 
likes to call them) clothes.

This summer, I worked part-
time 
at 
Anthropologie 
and 
was reminded of all the ways 
in which the retail industry 

can be problematic. Here’s a 
shortlist of some of the things I 
encountered:

While I was working at the 
cash register, I overheard a 
fellow employee next to me get 
yelled at by a white customer. 
My fellow employee and the 
manager were trying to explain 

the change in the return policy, 
but the customer kept saying 
they were wrong and she wasn’t 
being understood; she yelled at 
them, “You’re talking to me like 
I’m speaking Chinese!”

Yikes. Big, big yikes. I could 
write separately about each of 
these encounters, but piecing 
them all together reveals just 
how racist the industry can be 
(I’m looking at you, H&M and 
Gucci and Sephora) and how 
it’s far from inclusive of all 
body types (Brandy Melville, 
anyone?). These are all deeply 
intertwined and compounded 
by other factors, too — gender 
identity 
and 
socioeconomic 
status, for example — and just 

because things look like they’re 
starting to improve (like how 
more stores are including plus-
size options), doesn’t mean 
the retail world has suddenly 
become un-problematic.
In fact, far from it. Stores still 
racially profile and target people 
of color for stealing (I witnessed 
that a lot this summer); they 
still often only carry what we 
think of as “normal” sizes; and 
still so many brands are fast-
fashion, unsustainable for the 

environment 
and 
dangerous 
for their workers (on the flip 
side, more sustainable clothing 
isn’t accessible to people of low 
socioeconomic status).
Working retail was a way 
for me to make money this 
summer, especially since my 
internship was unpaid. But, it’s 
not something I would want to 
go back to — unless there was 
actual, concrete change in the 
industry.

4

A white woman once asked 
me, “Does this store have a 
petite-size section?” When I 
told her we didn’t, she put her 
hands on her hips and said, 
exasperatedly, “I just don’t 

understand why you don’t have 
a petite-size section when you 
have a plus-size section. Isn’t 
that discrimination? I’m a petite 
woman, I feel discriminated 
against.”

MONICA KIM
MiC Columnist

The pitfalls of 
retail

Sometimes I think about 
what we actually hold in 
our heads. What are we 
thinking 
about 
that 
is 

substantial? How are we 
processing the lives we 
lead? What do we open up 
to others for everyone to 

peer into? We wear the 
stains of life on our whole 
body. There’s nothing to 
hide.

So many times I’ve looked at 
the blue of these skies and been 
reminded of the blue of the 
ocean. But of course one owes 
itself to the other. Perhaps it 

is the perfect harmony that 
one expanse sits with us and 
sustains us on land, while the 
other remains watchful above. 
My Ma boli taught me that 

if you spit at the sky it will 
fall back on you. Perhaps this 
is because the sky rejects the 
hate we give it, and leaves it to 
the water to carry it away. 

ANURIMA KUMAR
MiC Podcast Editor

HARNOOR SINGH
MiC Assistant Editor

Boxhead

Blue

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

