There’s quite a furor over in Australia over a segment on television news program A Current Affair that claimed that a Sydney-area shopping center was kicking out “Australian” shops to make way for shops catering to Asians. The segment was filled with racist statements such as, ”I suppose it sounds horrible and racist, but we’re being swamped,” and ”I want to be a bloody Aussie, I don’t want to be Asian.” The reporter did not speak to any Asian people and claimed that the shop owners did not want to comment.
After the segment was aired, shop owners and community members spoke out, saying that they were happy to speak, that no one was actually being pushed out, and that the report gave the community a bad name:
Jenny Jones from New Moon said the report gave the impression that the whole centre was being taken over by Asian retailers.
“Let’s face it, the centre needs something to attract new shoppers. I think what they’re doing to the ground floor will be great. That report made the whole suburb look racist,” Ms Jones said.
Meanwhile Vietnamese-born pharmacists John and Helen Pham said the consensus among their regulars was that the report was biased and didn’t reflect the nature of the centre.
“People don’t care what nationality the shopkeepers are as long as they run a good shop,” Mr Pham said.
I snapped the photo above in a pan-Asian supermarket in California’s San Gabriel Valley ethnoburbs. The area is so Asian that “American products” get their own aisle, much like the ethnic aisle in mainstream “American” supermarkets.
