[nuclearnice3]

They are just details. Let them echo around in your head as you like.

Maybe she's from a conservative part of the world that doesn't have too many woman turning out as doctors. Maybe supporting her family of immigrants, who might not have a ton of money and are dealing with some of the hard things that being new in a strange country brings. Maybe in the deep background you can sense an unhappy reason they left Turkey in the first place. And all this taking place on a holiday eve when she and your narrator would rather be home with a hot tea and a book. She's a fighter, up against long odds, having overcome some adversity to get here. I don't mind a short wait.

Or maybe something totally different.

[someguydave]

It seems like you are a big fan of judging people on the basis of superficial appearances.

[short_throw]

It seems you're a big fan of judging people on superficial details of their internet comments.

The point was pretty clear to me...that there's a person and a family on the losing end of all this. Giving the owners of a store a backstory is humanizing, OP gave as much detail as he knew which wasn't much and that's fine. It's a shame we're all so tense about cultural details that people get attacked for trying to say something nice.

[wand3r]

Not op. I frequently do, all the time. You seem to indicate this is a bad thing. Maybe I misunderstood but its just data. As long as you don't draw huge conclusions with no room to adjust, then in my book its basically par for the course. We reason from heuristics, its difficult to analyze every possible person from first principles, especially in a casual interaction...

[z9znz]

This has nothing to do with the hijab. This is a matter of mixing perspectives.

All of the descriptions of the situation are rather mundane and bland. Only two extra details stand out: "Upper East Side of Manhattan (think pooches inside Gucci bags)" and "in a Hijab and was studying medicine and was helping her parents who immigrated from Turkey".

A significant percentage of "regular" stores in big cities are owned or at least managed and operated by immigrants from very different backgrounds.

These details being present in the brief story seem to have some significance, so my question was, "Why is this significant?"

This is not a judgement on the people running the store or of people in hijabs. It's a question for the poster about why those details were significant.

Maybe it was just the ramblings of an old person (which I can say as I'm an old person). But it is still fair to ask for clarification.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

my coworker is from turkey. wears a hijab. or did until very recently, interestingly enough. nice woman. very smart. fiesty.

[z9znz]

In a brief recall such as the parent post, certain details would seem either superfluous or meaningful if they don't appear to relate to the topic.

If you mentioned that the guy at the counter of the CVS was wearing a baseball cap, we would wonder why that was a significant detail, or maybe "what team was on the cap".

Saying someone had a hijab is clearly leading with some meaning, but the post didn't go into that detail. I can only guess that it implied something related to Muslims; but I don't even know. They didn't expand on that. So we are left to wonder WHY they mentioned it.

[balls187]

My interpretation was simply painting the picture of who helped him, and not commentary about muslim beliefs.

As another commenter said—humanizing the part of the locked deodorant, and that they did not mind because at the end of the day “we’re all in this together.”