Miliann Kang, 2016 PEP Fellow, comments in Refinery29 about longstanding conflicts between African-Americans and Asians in U.S. society. She says although incidents highlighting these conflicts are not in the headlines all of the time, "the reality of racially-distinct immigrant small business entrepreneurs operating in poor, underserved minority neighborhood persists as a formula for potential conflict." Kang, who has focused her research on Asian-owned nail salons and their racially diverse customers, says tension can run high when salon workers are paid low wages in often poor conditions serving mostly working-class clientele who cannot afford to waste money on subpar services.