Fabric departments and the marketplace of ideas....

I came to work and hit the ground running today. One family of people speaking a non-English language was looking for all sorts of fun fabrics involving sequins. To add to the mix, in came a Mennonite family (the father of this family asked the other family what language they were speaking—they said they were from Iraq—so I guess that’s Arabic?). I thought it might be interesting to watch the interactions.

I've noticed over my days in my department that there are a large number of non-native speakers that come through my aisles. I always found this strange because I don't exactly live in a large city. I always wondered what made them choose my town (not in a go-back-to-where-you-came-from kind of way--more of a of-all-the-places-you-could-go-you-chose-this-one? kind of way). The biggest mystery was how many of them were in my town. I figured the percentage of people that shop in my store must be low, so therefore, for every one that came my way, there must be many more that didn't cross my path. I began to rethink this equation today. It makes sense that people from foreign countries, with foreign traditions and foreign traditional clothing would have a hard time finding ready-made clothing for special events, etc. Therefore, a higher percentage of them would cross my path in the fabrics department--they are forced to make their own garments since they probably won't find traditional Indian clothing or a dress fit for a Puerta Rican Sweet 16 celebration.

I think the funniest thing was realizing that, in the fabric department, Mennonites and Iraqis have something in common. They both must make the clothes uniquely associated with their cultures. Neither group is really likely to find something suitable at the local American Eagle.

I also found both sets of customers merging their cultures with mainstream American culture. One of the daughters in the Mennonite family was wearing a homemade dress and a pair of Nike high-tops. The Iraqi family had an interesting way of using both Arabic and English words in their conversation without every having a break in the conversation. That’s all for now- this one may be continued later when I am feeling more creative.