Nail Industry Run by Vietnamese American
From: Thanh Duong <Thanh.Duong@sit.edu>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List
I have a former student from Colorado College. After his SIT- Study Abroad in Viet Nam last semester, he's interested in learning more about Vietnamese immigrants in the States.
Right now he in conducting his senior thesis for Sociology and he is writing it on a phenomenon in the United States how so many Vietnamese immigrants, when they come to they United States, find jobs in nail salons. He thinks it is very interesting phenomenon and he wants to understand why it has happened.
He asked me a few questions that I was hoping the list members could help me with. First, he remembered when he was in Vietnam that nail salons were not very popular, is this true? Are there very many nail salons in Vietnam? Second, from your experience and people you know, is it difficult or easy for Vietnamese people to immigrate to the United States, compared to other immigrant groups?
Any information you have about these 2 questions or anything you know about the Vietnamese nail salon industry in the United States would be greatly appreciated.
I appreciate your information so that I can forward to this student from Colorado College
Thanks in advance
Best
Duong Van Thanh, Ed.D
Representative, World Learning/Viet Nam
Academic Director and Senior Lecturer
Vietnam: Culture & Development
SIT Study Abroad
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I've talked to the women at my nail salon and the answer I get is that you only need to take a few courses courses over a period of about two months to qualify for a license. The other thing which they don't mention but which I have observed is that they do not need to speak much English in order to do their job (even though some of the customers tend to talk non-stop).
Many Vietnamese men are in the floor sanding business.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Michael Gray <maigray@yahoo.com>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I recognise this is just cheap ethnic humour, but your student may want to take note of the fact that L.A.'s stand-up comedians have also noticed the prevalence of Vietnamese nail salons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsWrY77o77o
Vietnamese-run nail salons are also very common in the UK (and probably elsewhere).
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From: Nina Mai Hien <nmh4@cornell.edu>
Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:47 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
About 10 years ago I conducted some ethnographic research in Vietnamese
nail salons in the Bronx. Even men who had engineering degrees and had hit
the glass ceiling were leaving their jobs and opening up shops or starting
to learn how to do nails. One of them told me that unlike his professional
career, the beauty industry was "democratic". The student may contact me
directly at nh27@nyu.edu
Nina Hien
--
Nina Hien
Visiting Fellow
Kahin Center
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
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From: Robert Schuessler <bschuess@bschuess.com>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Based on observations walking across Vietnam on the Orange Walk (to support Agent Orange victims) the beauty shop industry thrives in Vietnam although the focus of signage is more on hair than nails. But, as others have noted, maybe the nails require less training or licensing in the US and are therefor more accessible. But I think your student's observation that nail salons are not very popular may not be entirely accurate. I think they are not common as stand-alone enterprises.
This is just speculative regarding nail studios in the US, but the prominence of dry cleaning establishments in the US Korean community has a lot to do with the financing mechanism available through the Korean-American businessmen's groups. I don't know if a similar phenomenon might influence the predominance of Viet Kieu in the American nail industry.
Bob Schuessler
Exec Director, Orangehelpers
Working with Agent Orange Victims in Phu Yen Province
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From: Edward Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 6:39 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
According to an L.A. Times article of earlier this year, the involvement of
Vietnamese in the US nail salon business can be traced to a single person.
Believe it or not, that person is the actress Tippi Hedren, who starred in
Hitchcock's film "The Birds"! The article claims that Hedren met some
Vietnamese women living at a refugee center near Sacramento in the 1970s,
and arranged for her manicurist to give them lessons. Here's the article:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/05/local/me-nails5
I have to believe that there is more to the story than this article lets on!
So I am sure it is a very good topic for a student to pursue.
Ed Miller
Dartmouth College
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From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Edward.Miller@dartmouth.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This is essentially correct. As a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News 20
years ago, I reported on immigrant communities. Ethnic groups tend, by chance, to
get into certain businesses. The Patels from Gujarat in motel/hotels.
Ethiopians in parking lots; Koreans in dry cleaning, Cambodians caused
the demise of Winchell's doughnuts, and Vietnamese in
the nail industry. While it Tipi Hedren could have been involved, what's
more likely is that one Vietnamese immigrant led another into the industry.
It requires little English and is relatively easy to learn. It is also something
that both sexes can do -- it's not just women. However, the down side is
that it creates major respiratory illness and serious fungus problems for
both workers and clients. This has caused a certain decline in the popularity
of nail shops.
It should be noted that the nail business is generally for newcomers and
that people move on to less hazardous occupations as others arrive.
T,T.Nhu
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From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: maigray@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
While we are on anecdotes: A few years ago I talked to a Vietnamese American nail salon owner on a flight back from France, where she had been ordering supplies, she told me. When I asked her about the origin of the Vietnamese association with the nail business, she said she had had relatives in France who had been in that line of work for a long time.
In my dissertation I mention Bui Quang Chieu's daughter, who opened the first beauty parlour in Saigon in the 1930s. I don't recall nails being a particular focus of the beauty offerings at the time, or a focus of advertising.
Best
Judith Henchy
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From: Lisa Drummond <drummond@yorku.ca>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I have an MA student who is currently conducting fieldwork on Vietnamese-owned nail salons in Toronto. If your student wishes to get in contact off-list I will refer him to my student.
I'm not sure where your student was in Vietnam, but in Hanoi there are not only many nail salons (and other beauty services), there are also street traders who offer "mobile" nail services. My impression from earlier trips and a recent couple of days in HCMC is that nail and beauty salons are equally or possibly more prominently a feature of the landscape there.
Cheers,
Lisa
_______________________________
Lisa Drummond
Associate Professor, Urban Studies
Division of Social Science, Arts
York University
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From: Janet Hoskins <jhoskins@usc.edu>
Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 11:57 AM
To: Edward.Miller@dartmouth.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The Tippi Hedron story is quite well known in Los Angeles, but her position as the "patron saint" of the local nail industry is also due to Vietnamese networks, especially those associated with the famous Vietnamese actress Kieu Chinh. Since she was the narrator for our recent documentary on Caodaism "The Left Eye of God", I have heard some of these stories from her first hand.
Here is an interview from Nha magazine in which Kieu Chinh tells that story, adding that Tippi Hedron (who had been a guest on a talk show she had in Vietnam) paid for her airline ticket and invited her to stay at her home in 1975:
http://www.nhamagazine.com/back_issue/issue_0506/f_p2.shtml
Another version of the story (which says little about nails) appears on the website of Kieu Chinh's film "Journey from the Fall"
http://www.journeyfromthefall.com/Cast.aspx
The LA Times article may give a bit too much credit to a celebrity (no great surprise there), but it is true that Hedron and various others made major contributions to helping Southeast Asian refugees in the period right after 1975.
Janet Hoskins
Anthropology Department
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, Ca. 90089
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From: Robert Schuessler <bschuess@bschuess.com>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well this article get a whole lot farther into the nail industry than I thought I ever wanted to go, but it does offer an insider's view of the history of Vietnamese-Americans in the industry and indicates some potential resources for your student's research, like the Vietnamese Nail Care Professional Association (VNCPA).
Bob Schuessler
Orangehelpers.org
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From: Hung Thai <Hung.Thai@pomona.edu>
Date: 2008/11/3
To: maigray@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
There is a very good article on how the Vietnamese have been incorporated into the nail salon industry. See Federman, M. N., D. E. Harrington, et al. (2006). "Vietnamese Manicurists: Are Immigrants Displacing Natives or Finding New Nails to Polish " Industrial and Labor Relations Review 59(2): 302-318.
Newsweek also did an interesting article about Vietnamese nail workers and their black clients. Dickerson, D. (1997). Racial Fingernail Politics: Blacks and Asians Find a Strange Harmony at the Beauty Shop. U.S. News & World Report. 122: 33-36.
I can send the articles via pdf to whoever wants it.
Also, Milian Kang at UMass-Amherst has written a book, Manicuring Interactions, about Korean American women in the nail industry.
What interests me most is how Viet Kieu men have been incorporated into the industry, whereas Korean American men have not been. Any comments on that?
Best,
Hung Thai
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From: Le Dong Phuong <ldp@gmx.net>
Date: Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:58 AM
To: maigray@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
But not much in their 'home' towns if we could talk about their home in
Vietnam.
And it should be noted that they are very much ignorant about the
job-related harzards in their profession. That explains why other groups do
not like to do the nails.
============================================================================
===
Le Dong PHUONG, PhD.
Deputy Director
Center for Higher and Vocational Education
Vietnam Institute for Education Sciences
101 Tran Hung Dao
Hanoi - VIETNAM
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From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 9:28 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
According to the article linked by Robert Schuessler, Vietnamese-run
salons are usually a family business. The same seems to happen in
other family businesses like Chinese laundromats, Korean grocery
stores, and ethnic restaurants (Asian or otherwise) that have a strong
presence of men like husbands, sons, and nephews.
http://www.nailsmag.com/feature.aspx?fid=129&ft=1
Btw, the article is linked to a survey at the end.
~Tuan
--
Tuan Hoang, PhD Candidate
Department of History
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Academic year 2008-2009:
Notre Dame Kaneb Predoctoral Fellow
Department of History
1212 HMNSS Building
University of California, Riverside