Home » Did you ever wonder how Vietnamese immigrants to the US got into the nail salon business?

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Did you ever wonder how Vietnamese immigrants to the US got into the nail salon business? — 9 Comments

  1. Yeah, that movie made me afraid of birds that fly anywhere near me. Still like eagles though.
    My internist is a Vietnamese immigrant. Many years ago a co-worker at the store I worked at was a Vietnamese immigrant. Instead of walking around our frequently empty store whistling he made bombing sounds. Kind of disconcerting, but I just presumed that unfortunately it was a significant background noise of his childhood.

  2. “That actress was Tippi Hedren, an elegant blond who starred in several of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies in the 1960s.”

    Since when are two “several”?

  3. She was right about that “willing to do anything”. My 87 year old mother has the ugliest looking toes I’ve ever seen, in fact I tell her to keep those hideous digits covered. But she got it into her head to get a pedicure for the first time in her life. I said, “don’t be surprised if they shake their heads and show you the door”, (that’s what I would have done). But not only did they do a good job but they were happy to do it even to the point of saying “Please, come back soon”. I guess there is a lesson here for us all.

  4. That is so fascinating! I can’t wait to tell my sister. We always have mani-pedis when we are together.

  5. Having spent time in a couple of the larger cities in South Vietnam in 67-68 one thing very noticeable was the pride the Vietnamese women took in their nails. I don’t recall any nail color other than red. It was a cultural thing with South Vietnamese women long before Tippi Hedren

  6. A case of serendipity for sure. The Vietnamese’s willingness to do whatever it took to survive and prosper met opportunity when it knocked.

    But isn’t it amazing that they succeeded despite the inherently racist society to which they emigrated?

  7. I get my nails done at a Vietnamese family-run nail salon. Extraordinary work and attention to detail, and half the cost of other beauty salons. The owners are married immigrants and their children are college students in engineering and other STEM fields at local universities. On the weekends the college kids are in the salon doing manicures and pedicures alongside their parents. They all work hard, support each other, and provide a high quality service at a fair price. They have many loyal customers as a result.

  8. I used to be a fish farmer, in my younger days, and that is another area where Vietnamese people excel! That is, the cleaning of the fish. They, generally speaking, are excellent at tasks requiring manual dexterity and quickness. As well as jobs that are “beneath” others. And good for them! They’re the epitome of the American dream.

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