Polishing Their Future
For young Vietnamese, nail salon is a gateway
Reported and produced by Julia Simon
For 30 years, many Vietnamese in America have found their niche in nail salons. Today more than 40 percent of the nation's nail workers are Vietnamese. Reporter Julia Simon found that for some younger technicians, the salon is just a means to an end.
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Tu Vo often works in the storefront window of her nail salon on busy 18th street in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. She is one of the approximately 150,000 Vietnamese nail technicians working in America today.
But as 45-year-old Trihn Phan points out, the influx of Vietnamese technicians is a relatively new development.
“When I arrived in 1975 I was a little girl,” Trihn recalls. “When I came here there was a lot of Vietnamese. After 1985 I see a lot.”
Trinh works at TLC Nails in Los Angeles, California -- a state where four of every five technicians are Vietnamese. She came to America shortly before the Fall of Saigon and ’has been working in nail salons for more than two decades.
Tu Vo is 24 years old, and belongs to a younger generation of Vietnamese technicians who arrived in the US more recently.
“I am one of the boat people," Tu says. "I left with my dad to go to Indonesia and we lived in a refugee camp there for three and-a-half years and then we came to the United States."
As a child coming to America, Tu never imagined herself working in nails. But after graduating from college in Arlington, Virginia, she did what so many Vietnamese Americans have done before her: she went to cosmetology school. Two years ago she opened her own salon with her sister.
“I have never thought that I would be doing nails, working on people’s feet,” she says. “But when you come to this country, a lot of opportunities open and doing nails is making quick money so that’s what we decided to go in and do it.”
Tu’s feelings about the salon echo the ideas of many younger Vietnamese technicians: it’s quick money—not a vocation.
The Younger Generation
At Dupont Nails in Washington, D.C., a customer sits in a plush maroon armchair while a technician scrapes the calluses from her heels. Nearby, 28-year-old Harry Huy is finishing up a manicure. He’s been working in nails for two years while getting his MBA in financial management.
Harry says his generation isn’t as committed to the industry as the older technicians. He works only on weekends, but older technicians, he says, often take just one day off per week.
Like Harry, Tu works at her salon only a few days a week. She spends the rest of the time working in a D.C. government office. But for older nail technicians like Trinh Phan, who haven’t been to college, there is less job mobility.
As Harry explains, a language barrier is an obstacle for many older Vietnamese.
"Because the older generation, they cannot follow up their education here—so it’s quite difficult for them," he says.
After working in salons for almost a quarter-century, Trinh has no ambitions of changing careers. She explains that the keys to working in salons are patience and personal connections.
“The younger generation is into fast very fast,” she says. “When you become a beautician you almost like a psychiatrist, you listen to people talk, and complaining—you just listen. That’s the beauty business.”
Unlike Trinh, many younger technicians are planning for a future outside of the salon. Harry says he’ll continue working in the salon on the weekends, at least until he finishes his degree. As for Tu, she wants her salon to grow, but she wants to find other people to staff it.
“I can see myself expanding my business but it’s hard to find people,” she admits. "Expanding the business is an option but finding good people to work is also hard."
Fortunately for Tu, young Vietnamese still come to America every year and many may find work in nail salons like hers. But they, like her, may use the nail salon to build a better life, one step—and one foot—at a time.
Production assistance from Rebecca Tapscott.
