ABSTRACT
White Americans have directed racial violence and other racial harassment at Asian Americans since the first Asian immigrations of the nineteenth century. Throughout history, whites have generally been able to avoid consequences for such violence toward people of color. Joel, a Hmong American, lives in a West Coast city with a large Asian population. Joel manages recurring discrimination and struggles consciously with internalized racism, which has periodically involved a distancing from his "Hmongness". Joel shares his experience with whites in local stores. Although whites are the majority of shoplifters in the United States, white clerks are generally more cautious and fearful of shoppers of color, an experience of discrimination often reported by other people of color. Much discussion in the mass media and in some scholarly analyses emphasizes that the United States is now safely nonracist, especially in its public settings.
