by Tamina Davar

About the author: Tamina Davar is a contributing editor to A. Magazine: Inside Asian America.

“Susan,” a Filipina American salesperson, had been working at a well-known national fashion designer’s retail store in New York for four months when, according to Susan, Regional Manager “Sam” told her over the phone that he had a white male friend with a fetish for Filipina women. Ordering her not to tell her coworkers, he pressured Susan to perform a sexual favor for this friend, saying he’d get in trouble if she didn’t comply.

He offered Susan money, adding that another Asian woman had previously complied with this request. “I was in shock this was happening,” Susan recalls. “I thought if I...