American patients openly demand that hijab-wearing women abandon the hijab to be American

Evidence

Irum: [The patient] had seen me in the hallway with the hijab and … said, “Well, when she comes in here, I don’t know if I’ll be able to understand her language,” and he assumed that I didn’t speak English fluently. … I went in and just was myself, and I guess he was a little taken aback—he wasn’t really expecting an American—and then he says to me … “You know, you got to lose that. This is America.” He goes, “It’s sad that you people are still oppressed,” and you know, I just totally excused it. … Then his whole attitude was “You’re in America, you need to act like an American,” you know. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 279

Categorization

• CANDY: The patient telling a Pakistani American optometrist she’s ‘still oppressed’ while chitchatting during a busy appointment is a vivid, almost darkly funny vignette of everyday condescension.