I’m sorry if this has been answered in the past, but I tried a few different combinations of search terms and couldn’t find it.
I haven’t by any means taken a complete survey, but it seems that the mall-type nail places are almost (in fact, in my experience entirely) owned and operated by Asian people. Those I’ve asked have been Korean, and listening to them speak to each other in their native languages I know I’ve never been anywhere staffed by Japanese people, but otherwise I don’t know if a specific country’s immigrants solely supply America’s fake talon needs or not.
Furthermore, there seems to be a pattern at most places I’ve seen where the staff consists of one or two men and quite a few more women. Because of this I’ve wondered if these might be family businesses, but I’ve never asked. It seems pretty obvious that the vast majority are themselves immigrants or at least speak a non-English language as their first language; I’ve only very rarely seen anybody who seemed to be a second generation child of the family drafted for English ability or anything, like I’ve seen in family owned ethnic restaurants.
So, am I right in thinking there’s a dispoportionately large number of Asian people in this particular service industry? Why? Are they family businesses? Is that part of the world particularly known for nail artistry and me just unaware? Is this the case in other countries? Is there some crazy, um, freedom-tip conspiracy at work here? Possibly connected with the alien Mongolian gerbils? What’s the straight dope?
Perhaps it’s where you live. When I lived in San Francisco, I noticed that the nail places were approximately 75/25 Asian/Latino, though in the general population, there are about twice as many Latinos than Asians in SF. I now live in an area dominated by Mexicans, and a slight majority of ALL businesses seem to be owned by Mexicans, including nail salons…
I live in South Carolina. Currently I’m in Jacksonville, FL, and I walked through a mall with two entirely Asian nail places and got my nails done at one here in Fernandina Beach, all Asian people. While Columbia, my hometown, does have a pretty big Korean population (considering the South isn’t exactly full of Asian immigrants), this definately does not replicate the demographic spread of the population. The people you meet on the street at home - a whole lot of white people, a whole lot of black people (and it’s black women who really spend a lot of money at the nail places on elaborate tips), a few Hispanic people, and, um, the occaisional Asian person, mostly around the university. In spite of the part of town with several Korean restaurants and grocery stores, they don’t really represent a major demographic presence. Not enough to account for all the manicurists! No, this is not accounted for by the local demographic tossed salad.
I think it’s simply that, for whatever reason, a number of Asians opened nail salons. With a family run business like a nail salon, there are fewer barriers. When you have lots of people with training and experience, the tradition is passed along and pretty soon it’s a stereotype. And as more salons opened, more people got in the habit of having their nails done, and then in the 80s there were improvements in the fake nail technology…
Anyway, if you look at license records, Asians do seem to own the most salons.
And Zsofia, the South is full of Asians. There are Vietnamese boat people up and down the coast and the rednecks in the shrimping and fishing industry have not exactly been 100-percent accepting of this trend.
But after a while wouldn’t they not be recent immigrants? There do not, in my small manicure-getting experience, seem to be second generation immigrants in this business at all. You can see *that[/it] trend easily in family-run ethnic restaurants - often the greeter/phone answerer is young and speaks English far better - clearly second generation. Recent immigrants seem to start out in the kitchen, and a strict English-speaking heirarchy often appears - I know at my favorite Mexican restaurant, you come over and start out in the kitchen or pouring water, and as your English gets better you climb the ladder. Don’t ask the water guy questions. Often those with the most customer interaction, however, are the young people who speak English like they’ve done so all their lives - second generation immigrants.
I don’t see this pattern with the nail people. The desk guy seems to be the top dog male head of the family, who dosen’t necessarily speak any better or worse than anybody else there. There are very rarely people identifiable as second generation.
“The South” and “the coast” are different creatures, BTW. Columbia does not exactly have a booming shrimp industry. We do, however, have enough Korean people to support quite a few Korean Presbyterian churches via some demographic settlement pattern that I am unaware of.
These don’t seem to be the nail people either, BTW - the nail salons almost always prominently feature a Buddha statue/little shrine.
Oh, and since I’m sticking my nose into cultural/ethnic/racial beauty issues… why have I never seen a nail place run by black women?
The most complicated acrylic painted nail tip things these places do are most often gotten by black women. White and Hispianic women get manicures or sometimes tips, but I’ve never seen a white woman with Serious Nail Art like I’ve seen on many black women. This may be a function of where I live or who I meet, but it seems to be true. Other businesses that cater to African-American beauty needs, like the hair braiding-weaving-etc places, are almost exclusively owned and operated by black women, not surprisingly. Makes a lot of sense that you go into business doing what you do on your own hair or your friends’ hair, right?
I’ve never even seen an Asian woman in one of these places, although that might be because I don’t often go to the mall near the Korean neighborhood and the rest of town is pretty white. But I think it’s a safe assumption that it’s surprising to see this market niche filled almost exclusively by Asian people instead of black people.
I thought about the fact, BTW, that many of those hair salons may also offer nail services, but there still remains a large market of black women getting their nails done at the mall, noticeable whenever I go and get mine done. Not to mention that if you get any sort of artificial nails you’re a captive audience - gotta keep them up, so you’d think this would be a natural market niche for a similar group of black women as open the hair salons. Why not?
I live in Oakland, CA, and there are several nail places within a half-dozen blocks of me. I’ve never been in one, so I can only go on what I’ve seen from the sidewalk while not really paying attention. And it seems that several of the shops have black women doing the nails (couldn’t say who runs them).