To all the employees who hurt me before: racial discrimination by retail employees against Asian Americans

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racial discrimination by employees in the retail context is an under-researched area; this is especially true regarding the Asian American experience. Motivated by this lack of research, we explore 1) the forms of overt and subtle racial discrimination Asian Americans face in retail and 2) the behavioral responses of Asian American customers after experiencing discrimination.A transcendental phenomenological framework was used to examine one-on-one semi-structured interviews of 18 Asian American participants. The results show nine racial discrimination themes against Asian American customers: No Asians in here please, All you Asians … ,Less than, The perpetual foreigner, Carriers of the virus, Invisible, Not a target customer, Stereotyped customers, and All the same. Moreover, four behavioral response themes were derived: No action taken against the employee or retailer, No repatronage, Negative OCRs, and Direct complaint.The findings provide important implications for researchers and retailers.