How do thrift stores even get clothing? Many assume it’s only through community donations, consignment, and smaller purchases, but most thrift stores actually buy in bulk from large wholesale retailers like Mid-West Textile Co, USagain and A&E Used Clothing Wholesale. 

These giant wholesale facilities are painstakingly tasked with sorting through piles and piles of used American clothing. The amount of product that is processed yearly through secondhand wholesalers is remarkably high, exporter Samiyatex states in their Sustainability & Upcycling tab, “On average, we’ve sorted 10 million lbs of clothing and 4 million lbs of shoes...” 

According to Samiyatex’s website, 50% of their inventory is exported to developing countries in Africa, and 20% is unsellable and cut into cleaning rags. Another 20% of inventory is sold to India where the clothing is recycled into new yarn products (i.e. socks, carpet underpadding). The last 1-2% is considered valuable vintage items and sold to various retailers with the remaining 8-9% of product unusable.

U.S. thrift stores are not the primary client for Samiyatex and other secondhand wholesalers. Most of the sorted clothing is exported to developing countries, where the products are sold to private sellers and distributed in local markets. 

The pandemic has affected the fashion industry in many ways from in-person shopping experiences to overall supply chain management. Yet, the pandemic’s impact is especially felt by these secondhand clothing exporters who have faced their own set of obstacles due to the international nature of the industry. Fear of spreading the virus halted overseas purchases during the first few months of the outbreak, which resulted in a surplus of used clothing in warehouses. BOF reported that “In the United States, the value of [used clothing] exports from March to July fell 45 percent compared with the same period last year, government data shows.” It wasn’t until recently that consumers regained trust in purchasing. Recycling Magazine writes, 

“In the case of used clothing the average journey time it takes for a shipment to travel as sea freight to its end market in Africa or Asia is typically much longer than the virus can survive outside the body even on hard surfaces.”

Still, COVID-19 applies pressure to an already failing industry. A 2016 BBC analysis of data from the United Nations showed an early downward trend in used clothing exports. This can be attributed to the current rise of fast fashion, which inadvertently caused an increase in low quality donated goods that countries simply don’t want anymore. In 2018, the East African Federation even announced their intention to cease all imports of used clothes from the US by 2019 to focus on local businesses.

Agency checked in with some local Los Angeles thrift stores to hear how COVID-19 has affected their business. 

Keren Lobel of Jet Rag Vintage off La Brea explained how they were forced to shut down operations for roughly two months. 

“There has been a decrease [of sales] since the outbreak of Covid, but customers are slowly starting to come back,” said Lobel. 

Being an organization that exclusively works with secondhand garment wholesalers, Jet Rag Vintage might have benefited from one less obstacle. Bulk inventory transactions are generally simpler compared to competing businesses that restock inventory through daily donations, like Culver City’s Love the City Thrift Store. 

Store owner Emma Hall explained that, before COVID-19, Love The City took clothing donations every day. Now, the donation process is much more complex. 

“We started to set up individual donation days where people in the community or organizations could bring goods that we would then store for two weeks minimum. Then, we would go in, organize those items, clean them, price them, and transport them back to our storage itself,” Hall said

Aside from inventory, Hall explained that their overall purpose in the space of secondhand selling goes beyond monetary profits. Love The City hopes to serve the Los Angeles community. She explains, “Something that we do is in our name, love the city. We are really here to try and help the least fortunate and those who are most in need.” 

Love the City partners with organizations like You Matter L.A., which works with those experiencing homelessness, and the Culver Needs Committee, a subset of the Culver City Unified School District that provides aid to low-income families whose access to clothes and home goods has been impacted by the pandemic. 

Hall explained that she wishes general consumers were more cognizant of what is done with their clothes after their use.

“The last resort should be throwing it out. Usually, there is always an option before throwing it away,” she said. “I wish people knew that you can recycle your clothes... You can customize them. You can give them a friend.”

Hall also says that she wishes folks understood how far a piece of clothing goes when you decide to donate it to a local thrift store rather than discarding it. 

“You really can make an impact and a difference. And it can actually make someone's day. Like you can see people light up because they are able to find something that, you know. Even though it belonged to someone else, it's a joy for them to be able to find this great deal on something that they need.”

There is no one exact solution to the growing supply of secondhand clothing. What you do with your old clothes has consequences - whether that means holding onto that jacket for a couple more seasons, donating only quality garments to local organizations, or recycling an old shirt into dish rags. Our habits contribute to a greater ecosystem of existing apparel and each one of us can lessen the load.

By Kellie Toyama

With the rise of uncertainty in these unprecedented times, there has been a rise in people of all ages struggling with mental health and substance abuse since April. Even more concerningly, the CDC has found that young adults from the ages of 18-24 are experiencing “disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use, and elevated suicidal ideation.” With this information in mind, it is important to consider who is most likely to report symptoms of mental illness. The stigma around mental illness fed by misconceptions and biases is no doubt prevalent in every culture. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, for example, have reported higher levels of “self-stigma,” when regarding mental health, and feel “less hopeful” than their white counterparts when considering themselves as contributing members of society. Asian-Americans are the least likely ethnic group to report symptoms of mental illness—not necessarily because they are the least affected, but presumably because they are the least likely to report it. 

As a third-generation Asian-American immigrant, I know there are many generational barriers to overcome when it comes to conversations about mental health at home. For immigrant parents, it is confusing to hear their child struggle emotionally and mentally because our experience is inherently more privileged than theirs. “How can you be sad when you have a roof over your head and food at the table?” is no doubt a question I and many of my peers have heard over the years. But we must remember that struggling to keep a stable/healthy mental state does not make you an ungrateful child. Mental illnesses are the result of trauma and complex environmental circumstances. You, as an individual, are never to blame. Regardless of having physical bodily needs met, we still deserve to have our emotional needs considered. This concept may be difficult for different generations to grasp, but it’s an idea worth bringing up for the sake of our well-being and a family’s holistic well-being. It feels daunting to tackle the systemic ways in which mental health treatment is inaccessible, but initial conversations at home with intergenerational dialogue can be more influential than you may think. 

In my mixed Japanese/Chinese household, it took almost all of my teenage years to work up the courage to talk to my parents about seeing a psychiatrist, though I had been struggling with depression since I was fourteen and anxiety long before that. When I was surprisingly met with a willingness to understand, I wished I had done it sooner. At college, it feels natural to talk about taking care of myself and my mental health. At home with family and in predominantly Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities though, mental health still feels like a taboo subject, even though it shouldn’t be. 

Though everyone’s home situation and family dynamics are different, and older API generations might be dismissive of acknowledging mental health altogether, here are a few things that I’ve found helpful in facilitating these uncomfortable but necessary conversations in API spaces:

1. Acknowledge the cultural values that may be “in conflict” when talking openly about mental health. Don’t allow these clashing ideas to discourage you from thinking about the care and healing you deserve. 

Many East Asian cultures place value on the image of a family before the individual. This is where parents might be coming from when they want to sweep instances of mental illness under the rug. However, this idea does not have to be a destructive concept. Your physical and mental health is actually something that can benefit the family as a whole in the long run. Wanting to be better for yourself and others is not a selfish thing. Yes, the topic of mental health is very Westernized, but it is not a betrayal of your culture to engage with it. 

2. Help people understand mental illnesses by starting from a scientific, logical perspective. 

While this explanation doesn’t fully encompass the complexities of depression and anxiety, common mental illnesses manifest as chemical imbalances in your brain. It might be easier to ground concepts of emotion in solid theory and reason. It’s not realistic for a person to simply handle emotional/mental struggles silently on their own, just as it wouldn’t be realistic for a diabetic person to will more insulin into their bloodstream. Since most adults are generally more receptive to physical healing than emotional healing, consider your brain chemistry as an extension of your body that deserves the same degree of care. 

3. Try to be a patient educator, keeping in mind the internal conflicts the people you are talking to might have themselves. 

It can be especially exhausting to explain your existence to people who are simply unwilling to hear your struggles. They can never fully know what we are feeling, and we can never know what feelings they might be hiding. However, showing your care for their well-being may help them be receptive. 

At the end of the day, the initial conversations are the most daunting. But the more comfortable we get in talking about mental health, the more we can destigmatize it, and the easier it is to open doors to accessibility. In the meantime, if you are in a household that is ultimately un-affirming, you can visit sites with accessible services and connections like the National Alliance on Mental Health for communal healing practices. 

Towards the beginning of quarantine, Agency commissioned the LMU community to tell us what a day in their lives looked like under the given circumstances. We collected journal entries, anxiety and creativity tips and the editorial board took still life photographs. Before we switched our full focus to the Black Lives Matter movement and support of the LMU black community, my contribution to “A Day in the Life” was an article I titled “I Love My Cat.” The opening paragraph was as follows: 

(I recommend coming here after COVID times even if you don’t want to adopt because all of the dogs have free reign to walk around the store)