Apparently she was too busy staring at them with envy to notice all the chubby, awkwardly dressed uncomfortable white girls standing right next to her thinking the same exact thoughts. There's no racism here. If anything there are culturally insensitive parents who shouldn't have tried to make their daughter reflect their homeland's culture in an American high school.
I speak from experience, here. I was engaged to a Bengladeshi immigrant that had grown up here from the age of 8. She even had an accent. Like absolutely every American adolescent that has ever been she struggled to fit in and define her sexuality and self in high school. Her parents, however, didn't seem to mind western culture and allowed her to embrace it. In the end, no doubt because her parents authorized her efforts to fit in, her race if anything added an edge of "exotic" and she was actually one of the more popular and sought after girls in her high school. Her sister was a bit homely, a lot like I image the author of this piece to be, but fared quite a bit better than her frumpy white counterparts; again, her race offering an "exotic" edge.
I'm sorry but I had to say it. Frumpy chicks never have fun in high school. This girl's story sounds like so very many similarly proportioned white girls I've known in life. I mean, replace her folks with out of control helicopter Christian Scientists or something and the story wouldn't bee much different.