Inside the External

Grace Sumitro’s closet is a time capsule of her life. The pastel dresses, floral patterned tops, and stacks of folded jeans and sweatpants in pale colors are artifacts of various phases of Sumitro’s life as she grew up in Champaign, Ill., moved to Los Angeles for college, spent a summer in Tokyo and prepares for graduation this May.

“I think [fashion has] always been subconsciously something that I’ve thought about, but I think especially in high school is when I was like, ‘Oh, I really like dressing up and putting together little outfits,” Sumitro said.

However, it wasn’t until Sumitro began her undergraduate studies at USC that her slight interest in fashion became something of much larger significance to her. A senior majoring in health and human sciences, Sumitro said that college is where she first began exploring her fashion and by extension, exploring her identity.

The desire to learn about oneself is an inherently human one. Intertwined with this need for self-understanding, the development of one’s identity is crucial to a person’s growth. But while this self-analysis is primarily internal, the shifts one is undergoing are often obvious to onlookers as well — with identity expression through one’s choices in appearance.

For many, college serves as a prime opportunity for this exploration.

“It’s just that transitional period where you go from being a child and living with your parents to finally going off and being by yourself,” Crystal Wang, a psychiatry postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Diego, said. “It’s that moment of independence, where, because you don’t have the context of where you were before or parents to guide and shape who you are, it’s this time to explore on your own.”

In addition to moving away from one’s prior environment in college, Wang also attributes the significance of this period to being surrounded by and immersed with one’s peers — something that makes this time period’s influence “double fold.”

This transitional period can be especially tricky for college-age Asian American women, who juggle additional factors in their self-exploration journey due to their race and gender.

“Everyone struggles with trying to define their identity, but as Asian Americans, as racial and cultural minorities, there’s much added layers of complexity to that,” Ruth Chung, a professor of clinical education at the USC Rossier School of Education and an expert in Asian American acculturation, said.

Much of this complexity is rooted in the different contexts, like one’s geographical environment or generation, in which Asian Americans grow up in, Chung said.

So much of what are some of the salient dimensions that shape identity is very contextual,” she said. “You have people coming from opposite directions, and on the surface, they appear and present as generic college students, but inside, their struggles can be very different.”

These additional factors affecting members of the Asian American community inform many of their peer behaviors, Wang said.

“We know that, in general, women are [really influenced by their peer behaviors], but it seems to really be emphasized with Asian women,” she said. “I think it’s a combination of that gender aspect, but also that collectivistic aspect of Asian cultures, where the ideal is to fit in and to do whatever your peers are for group harmony, and we really see that in the research.”

While identity development is a shared experience for many, regardless of demographic factors, the additional elements that shape the Asian American feminine experience offer a unique lens into the tie between identity development and external appearance, amidst the stereotypes and struggles of acculturation that plague this group.

Sumitro, who identifies ethnically as Chinese and Indonesian, was born in Tokyo before moving to Champaign, a predominantly white suburb south of Chicago, as a toddler, where she grew up before moving to L.A. for college. She said her upbringing in Champaign manifested itself in the way she dressed, with her “trying to emulate a lot of what [she] saw in the media or [her] other friends that were at [her] dance studio or at school.”

“I definitely just saw, like, ‘Oh, my white friends are dressing like this, so I also have to dress like this,’” she said.

Sumitro’s experience is common among Asian Americans who grow up in predominantly white areas, according to Chung.

“It has to do with what communities they come from, like how diverse or not diverse their communities are, because that shifts earlier dynamics,” Chung said. “If they were in a very non-diverse community through high school, then they’re much more likely to want to fit in and become much more assimilated to fit the norm.”

Hadyn Phillips, who identifies ethnically as half Chinese and Korean, and half white, experienced a similar desire to fit in after moving to the United States from Tokyo to attend high school. Growing up in Japan, Phillips, a sophomore at USC majoring in intelligence and cyber operations and public relations, said she was always viewed as a foreigner. But, when she began attending a boarding school in rural Massachusetts, she didn’t quite fit in there either — she remembers a classmate telling her that her being half Asian and half white and growing up in a different country made her “not fully anything.”

“[My classmate] said, ‘If you think about it, I’m Korean and [another classmate] is American, so we have that, but you’re not really anything,” Phillips said. “She didn’t mean it that way, but it just stuck with me, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, what? What am I? It was like an existential crisis.”

Coming from Tokyo, where wearing a uniform to school was mandatory, free dress was something crucial to Phillips’ adjustment to living in the U.S. and figuring out who she was. During her sophomore year of high school, she decided that she wanted to find a boyfriend, so she naturally looked to her American classmates who had boyfriends and drew inspiration from how they dressed.

“In western Mass., it’s very New England preppy, so a lot of Vineyard Vines, Lululemon,” she said. “I was like, ‘Okay, I need to shop at Lululemon and Brandy Melville to get a boyfriend, and that’s how I decided I was going to dress. I would buy leggings, I would buy whatever sweaters they were wearing, I would go online shopping with the girls, but I was like, ‘I need to dress more American.’”

However, after the coronavirus pandemic cut Phillips’ sophomore year short and her family moved from Tokyo to Los Angeles, bridging the gap she had previously had with her Asian roots, her approach to fashion changed to one that was more introspective.

“I realized that I was really just not dressing for myself. The things that were interesting to me when I was shopping or on Depop or thrifting were not what I was literally buying because I think I was so like, ‘I need to acclimate to the U.S. and the U.S. customs and the U.S. standards,’” Phillips said. “I was really scared of becoming whitewashed, and I let myself do that because I just wanted a boyfriend. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m just not really myself anymore.’”

For Sumitro, entering college and being surrounded by a more diverse community deeply affected her relationship with her identity. She said that being around people that related to her cultural background helped her to further understand what it meant to celebrate one’s culture — traits she’s seen in her parents as they ate Indonesian food or wore clothes made of batik, a traditional Indonesian fabric. The batik dresses in her closet that she brought with her from Champaign are tangible representations of her cultural identity.

“I used to look at those things and kind of demonize them, and be like, ‘There’s no reason for me to wear this because I don’t associate myself with that culture anymore because I live in America,’ but now I’m like, ‘Oh, this is very much a central part of me,’” Sumitro said. “It’s nice to celebrate it and it’s a beautiful thing to celebrate, because I’m like a personification of the diaspora.”

Regardless of where in the country an Asian American woman grows up, they will undoubtedly face one of the numerous stereotypes surrounding Asian women, like the sultry and mysterious Dragon Lady, or the submissive and docile schoolgirl.

Lily Ye, a USC graduate who majored in business administration, joined an Asian sorority during her freshman year on campus. Originally from Morristown, N.J., Ye didn’t know what an Asian Baby Girl, or ABG, was until she moved to L.A. for college. The stereotype is characterized by dyed hair, false eyelashes, and a tendency to consume bubble tea and attend raves. It is commonly attached to women who join Asian sororities.

“Before I [joined the sorority], I already had my dyed hair, I already had started putting on lashes and things like that, so people around me were like, ‘Oh my god, the sorority life is coming to fruition,’ and ‘You’re becoming more ABG,’” Ye, who identifies ethnically as Chinese, said. “I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is a stereotype.’”

Ye, who joined the sorority originally to find a friend group on campus, said she is still called an ABG today, even after graduating — something that she said made her feel more negatively towards the stereotype and her association with it.

“I associated ABG especially with that sorority life, and now that I was out of it, I didn’t really feel like I truly belonged in that kind of scene,” she said. “That’s not part of who I am just because I look a certain way.”

Stereotypes are “inherently harmful,” Chung said, as they box people into one-dimensional labels and detract from everyone’s own identity.

“The complexity around it is that human beings just tend to see patterns. And then, when we see patterns, we give them a label, and that’s kind of what stereotypes are,” Chung said. “Stereotypes are inherently illogical, and yet, we cannot help but make generalizations.”

Wrestling with the stereotypes that exist around Asian women in relation to discovering who exactly they are in general is a challenge for this demographic, especially given the harmful lenses through which they may be viewed.

After spending a summer in Tokyo during college, Sumitro found herself leaning more into her style — a style she characterizes as “comfy, chic and cute,” which she thinks is usually associated with the schoolgirl trope, a common stereotype in Japan.

“It made me think a lot about if it was bad for me to wear things that were kind of cutesy, because I felt like I would be fetishized in that way. Am I putting myself in the position to be fetishized?” Sumitro said. “I don’t want to dress like a stereotype, but then it’s hard because when are we not being stereotyped?”

As to why people’s identities tend to align with their actions, Wang cites an intertwining of two psychological concepts: cognitive dissonance, a psychological term referring to a feeling of mental discomfort when humans are met with inconsistencies in their minds, and identity-based motivation. The two work hand in hand — both concepts describe how one’s identity acts as a driving force behind their everyday choices and decisions.

“If your identity is that ‘I’m not a model minority, I’m different than them,’ then it’s really important, and you will do everything to try to keep your beliefs about what your identity is, your behaviors, how you dress, everything, all in line with each other,” Wang said. “This is your identity, and you believe strongly and you will act a certain way to be in line with your identity. And if you don’t act in a way that’s in line with your identity, it causes you a lot of distress and dissonance, so then you try to make up for that by overstepping in the opposite direction.”

For Sumitro, the way she dresses is extremely reflective of the way she feels internally — something she’s not willing to sacrifice due to the opinions or assumptions of others.

“I like dressing in very light and bright and softer colors, and that is always how I’ve felt on the inside and the way I see the world as well. Because that is my personality, having that reflect on the outside makes me feel like everything is whole for me,” Sumitro said. “I can celebrate my own style and do whatever I want, look however I want, and what [others] think of me doesn’t define who I am, because I have the ability to define myself.”

More so, the relationship between fashion and identity spans beyond just everyday outfit curation. For Ye, blending fashion and social media content creation became her creative outlet following the onset of the pandemic.

“I really missed out on my creative side throughout college because I just got so busy with so many org[anizations] and so many other interests,” she said. “I wanted to find a new outlet to go back into that creative art side.”

Lily Ye has over 3,000 followers on TikTok, where she creates and shares outfit inspiration videos. (Photo courtesy of Lily Ye)

With almost 25,000 likes on TikTok and over 3,000 followers on Instagram, Ye’s fashion served as a pathway towards finding a new passion and facet of her identity. She said that when she receives feedback from her followers, it “really touches her.”

“It makes me feel like I’m actually making a difference with the content that I’m putting out,” Ye said. “That’s kind of the internal gratification. It’s part of defining what my purpose is.”

Ashley Kim’s approach to fashion and creativity takes a different approach. Kim, a freshman at USC majoring in media arts and practice, works in costuming, where she creates garments that visually depict stories or aspects of her identity.

“It’s a hobby and a medium with which I can produce or execute my messages,” Kim said. “Now, I see fashion as more of an art medium than for actual wearing purposes.”

In her day to day, Kim described her fashion sense as following a “Pinterest look,” but is less adventurous with her own wardrobe than with the pieces she creates. Growing up in Santa Clarita, a suburb north of Los Angeles, Kim noticed an immediate difference between the way she dressed and the way that her cousins who lived in South Korea did — something that she said made fashion a “very big reflection of how you’re influenced culturally by the people around you and the environment you’re surrounded by.”

“I definitely think that fashion is a way that people express their identity, whether it’s culturally or otherwise,” Kim said.

When she applied to USC, Kim was required to create a visual piece that told a story. Having been interested in fashion from a young age and after finding her mother’s sewing machine during the pandemic, she submitted a dress inspired by traditional Korean hanbok, with elements representing various aspects of her ethnic culture.

“With using [fashion] as an art form, it’s more fun and imaginative,” she said. “It’s really rewarding, and I am really glad that I unlocked this new facet of creativity that I think is honestly so cool to present my artwork in.”

Every morning when Sumitro wakes up and gets ready, she opens her closet time capsule. She combines pieces from her youth in Champaign with clothes from her summer in Tokyo and thrifted garments from shops in L.A. into outfits that, together, comprise her.

“Every time I’m making an outfit, those different parts of me, the different pieces of clothing that I got from different places at different times of my life, I feel like I[’m] grabbing different parts of my identity,” she said. “Putting together an outfit is all those pieces coming together for me.”

As she inches closer to her graduation, Sumitro’s wardrobe and each of the outfits she creates from its contents serve as the perfect outer representation of the person she has become internally.

“Me walking around every day, wearing a new little outfit composed of different pieces of clothing that I have from different parts of my life,” Sumitro said, “I just feel like an encapsulation of myself. I know this is a reflection of my self-growth journey.”

As Phillips continues her exploration of her identity in correlation with her fashion journey, she said that she, too, has become more cognizant of the threads of her identity stitched into the physical pieces of clothing she wears every day.

“I realized that a big part of clothing for me even now is that I like to buy things also because of the memories associated with [them],” Phillips said. “I want to remember who I was with and what day it was and what we did after, because I feel like clothing can hold a lot of memories. And they can hold a lot of your identity in it too.”

As she continues her time in college — the time Chung said is “probably the most fertile time and period in which identity becomes shaped and formed and defined” — Phillips said she is continuing to explore what fashion means to her, and who she is as a whole.

“We really just base everyone’s first impression off what they’re wearing,” she said, “and I’m working on it.”