A tiny but determined group of Bayside residents have been traveling to Flushing on weekends to picket outside the H-Mart supermarkets there. Why Flushing? The leader of the protest, Jim MacDonald, says he's worried about a new H-Mart opening up in his neighborhood, at the site of a former Waldbaums. MacDonald insists H-Mart's hiring policies are racist, and that all of the employees he sees at H-Mart are either Asian or Hispanic. He says most of them don't speak English, and he doesn't want to this sort of language barrier going up in his backyard.
“It’s unfair to block out other ethnic backgrounds and only hire specific ones,” Craig Kinsey, another demonstrator, tells the Queens Courier. “Flushing is a diverse community. If you want to show diversity, put your money where your mouth is. Have some diversity in employment.” The payroll manager at H-Mart, an international supermarket chain with at least 40 stores in 13 states, "We operate in supermarkets all across the country. Each store is so different. It all depends on the customer base."
But MacDonald says he's visited other H-Marts on Long Island and observed the same lack of diversity. And he isn't the first to make this allegation against H-Mart. A location in Riverdale, Georgia has also been criticized for its lack of diversity. The Georgia blogger who took the photo above claims that "100% of the checkout staff are of Asian descent. Of the consumers 90% of them (INCLUDING ME!!) are Black American."
Closer to home, MacDonald and his protesting friends say they're worried H-Mart's hiring pattern will repeat when it opens in Bayside, with few jobs for local residents like MacDonald, who is white. "It irritates me that there is no hope whatsoever of getting a job at H-Mart if you don’t belong to the two groups they only hire,” MacDonald tells the Queens Courier. “There’s a sense of injustice there.” And so he'll be outside the H-Marts in Flushing once again this Saturday, come rain or Frankenstorm.
