On September 7th, I started filming a video on my first day of classes in Barcelona, Spain, when I was in the elevator on my way to the grocery store across the street from my homestay. The night before my first day, I got my menstrual cycle, and this morning, my need for feminine products was urgent. I strolled in the street, and in the near distance, I saw mountains and felt tranquil. I looked in front of me, and the steel doors that safeguard the retail floor lifted. I thought to myself, the store had just opened, and I would be in and out without any problems. I looked for the section with feminine hygiene products and was a bit confused about the options in front of me, so I asked one of the grocery clerks for assistance. She said yes, and I followed her, relieved that someone could assist me with finding the proper pads.
After a very helpful dialogue between the two of us, I was able to locate what I needed on the shelves, and finally, I walked to the register for checkout. I put my products, four packs of pads and flushable wipes, on the conveyor belt (the pads were thin and I was uncertain about them, given my flow). The cashier rang up my items, and after this, I recall that I said I was paying with a “tarjeta,” which means card in English. This was my third time shopping at this grocery store, and the usage of “tarjeta” had become a routine of mine, a signifier that I was paying with my bankcard. The cashier stared at me, and I stared back at her. This brunette middle-aged woman uttered, “identificación” to me. I remember staring in confusion because I had visited this store before, and the cashier who normally rings up my items had never asked me for identification. Our interactions are exchanges of smiles and ¿Cómo estás? I dug in my leather wallet, carved by my abuelo and fetched by ID. I showed her my ID, and she looked and nodded. This felt vile. I paid for my products and left the store. I do not recall her facial expressions at the register because the interaction puzzled me. I am still processing it. Although, I did not have language for what I experienced until a few days later, I had a feeling that something was off.
That evening, I talked with my homestay mom about the situation, and she was confused about me being asked to show my identification to buy products. She said that she knew about a store membership card, but the identification conversation was essentially out of her scope. The next morning, I talked to an IES Abroad Barcelona staff member whom I trust dearly and look forward to seeing at the IES Abroad Barcelona center. She was incensed when I told her about what happened to me at my local grocery store. She also informed other IES Abroad Barcelona staff, and we all had a deep conversation about racism. My IES Abroad Barcelona trusted advisor informed me of my rights and said that what I experienced was racial profiling. According to Article 205 of the Spanish law, "foreigners have the right and obligation to have documentation that proves their identity and one that proves their reason for being in Spain". Secondly, as stated in the Citizens Advice Bureau, “foreigners are obliged to show the documents referred to in the previous section when required by the authorities or their agents, in the exercise of their functions.” Also, a foreigner is “obliged to show the documents to the authorities and police when asked to.” This grocery clerk violated the law because she is not an authority or agent of the law. Even if she was an agent of law enforcement, her behavior was absolutely unacceptable. Her view of me was rooted in bias, and I was targeted and treated differently based on my race rather than “individual behavior or concrete evidence.”
Before this situation, I was not ignorant to racial profiling but what I will say is that I moved from home to college going from one bubble to the next and this was my first experience being in the “real world” fully without any shield or comfort from my dear HBCU in the U.S. Racial profiling is defined by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as “any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection, that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin, or a combination of these, rather than on a reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment.” My white roommate told me that she purchased tampons at the exact same grocery store a week later and was asked for nothing but payment. My roommate and I had the same intention to buy period products for our cycle, but in one instance, I, as a Black woman in the grocery store, was “singled out for greater scrutiny and or different treatment.”
It has been three weeks and four days since the incident occurred, and so far, I have been proactive. I requested counseling from my study abroad center, and I started last week and will work to process this traumatic incident in the weeks to come. I also plan to report this incident to the Office for Non-Discrimination here in Barcelona, Spain, and lastly, I will be talking with the manager of the grocery store about this bias-motivated hostility. This was a serious act of injustice, and I am intolerable to all forms of injustice, i.e., racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Lastly, I was reading Ser Mujer Negra en España by Desirée Bela-Lobedde, and after Bela-Lobedde retells a story about kids who called her Black growing up in Barcelona, she said this, “My reaction was always the same. It paralysed me. I didn’t know what to say. In fact, was there anything to say? And, if there was something to say, what was it? I didn’t know, so I didn’t react. What is it to be Black?” On that morning in the grocery store, cement encircled my ankles when "identificación” scraped the air. I didn’t know what to say, so I obeyed. My ignorance of Spanish law and confusion altogether prompted me to cooperate and not to question. This incident stirred many feelings in me, and like cured cement, the effects of racism are gritty and hard to touch. A sledgehammer breaks cement. I am wondering what my sledgehammer will be and what will break the impact of racism. For now, I am starting by reciting Me Gritaron ¡Negra! by Victoria Santa Cruz.
Editor's Note: Experiences abroad can be deeply rewarding, but they can also include difficult moments that reflect broader social issues. Unfortunately, racism exists around the world and can take different forms in different cultural contexts. At IES Abroad, we are committed to fostering learning environments that encourage critical reflection, intercultural understanding, and meaningful dialogue about equity and inclusion. Our Access and Strategic Partnerships team is available over phone and email before students leave to help students prepare for their time abroad. Our highly trained local staff are also ready to engage with onsite students whenever they have questions, concerns, or experiences they would like to discuss.
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Denim Fisher
Denim Fisher is a Spelman College junior hailing from Baltimore, Maryland at Spelman College. Denim is interested in poetry, museums, social justice, and film (she is a social justice fellow and John Lewis scholar at Spelman and performed and created a poetry workshop at the biannual Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference). As a literature, media, writing major with a double minor in comparative women’s studies and Spanish, she aims to pursue a career as a poet, novelist, and teaching artist. Denim loves archival research and aspires to have a literary career that honors memory, identity, and “knowledge that pertains to cultural, artistic, and historical records.”
