Commerce Bank -- I mean TD Bank

I deposited my most recent paycheck at the TD Bank on the corner of Bowery and Canal street, Chinatown.  Sometimes I deposit it at the one on Seventh Avenue near Macy’s.  There are TD branches all over Manhattan, which is cool, since I never know where I’ll be throughout the day.  I’ve been to many TD branches.  They all have lollipops.  There’s almost always a cop in there, since I guess TD doesn’t like the aesthetics of bulletproof glass.  The branch on the corner of Bowery and Canal was the same as all the rest except for one detail.  All the tellers and customer service people were Asian, probably Chinese.


I got to thinking.  The homogeneous staff  matched the dominant population of the neighborhood.  In every other branch I’ve used the staff is made up of many different ethnicities.  So why all Chinese in Chinatown?  Or I wondered if I went to Harlem, a traditionally Black neighborhood, would all the tellers be black?  I wondered if there was a White neighborhood in New York and, if there was, would the TD staff there be all white.  I thought maybe I should go to every TD bank in New York and see for myself.  I wondered why it bothered me.


But then it hit me.  The staff was probably hired because they all had a very important skill: the ability to speak Chinese.  Who speaks Chinese better than Chinese people?  In a neighborhood which is, or at least seems, 99% Chinese, TD had the appropriate staff for their location.


Looks like TD made the right decision.