Nailing It : In Mini-Malls Across the Valley, Vietnamese Refugees Find Their Niche as Manicurists

Tammie Ly reveled in her good fortune.

As the Studio City entrepreneur sailed in the door of her bustling 2-year-old business--Tammie’s Nail Salon--she was showered with a confetti of hellos from customers eager to see the latest symbol of her success--a two-carat diamond ring from her husband.

“I am very, very lucky,” said Ly, 25, sitting at the manicuring table where she can be found 12 hours a day, six days a week (no holidays, no vacations, no coffee breaks). “I am lucky to be alive, lucky to very much love my life here.” She added: “I am so lucky to be in the United States, it makes me cry.”

Nine years ago, Tammie Ly was getting married in a Thai refugee camp to another Vietnamese refugee. They had $10 between them and were able to immigrate to the United States only after a church in Virginia sponsored them.

Today she earns about $100 a day. Like many of the Vietnamese refugees who have settled in the Los Angeles area since 1976, Ly has found a comfortable niche in the nail trade. She and her colleagues have found a way to realize the American dream in a booming business that requires relatively little start-up capital and only a few hundred hours of training. And the evidence of their success can be found in mini-malls across the San Fernando Valley.

Said one local manicurist: “When you bump into a nail shop every two feet along Ventura Boulevard, you don’t have to be bounced off the turnip truck to know everyone coming here wants into the beauty business.”

$932-Million Business

According to the New York-based trade publication American Salon, 139.9 million manicures, pedicures and artificial nail services were provided in the United States last year, generating $932 million in business. That kind of money has attracted thousands of Southern Californians. According to the state Board of Cosmetology, the number of licensed manicurists in Los Angeles County has increased by more than 50% in the last five years--from 9,755 in June, 1984, to 15,238. And industry observers agree that the business has a special appeal for Vietnamese immigrants.

“Most Vietnamese immigrants have the idea that running their own business is ideal,” said Hao Doan, 35, program coordinator of the Southeast Asian Community Center in Van Nuys. “In Vietnam, most small businesses are owned by women. They come here and want to do the same.”

Said Victoria Wurdinger, senior editor at American Salon: “These immigrants don’t have any cultural attitude about ‘Madge the Manicurist.’ To them, it’s a very glamorous profession compared with being a maid or a garment worker.” And, she added, “It’s a profession where the faster and harder you work, the more money you make.”

Tammie Ly owns a red convertible BMW and a North Hollywood house painted “sexy American” pink inside, and sends her 8-year-old daughter, Annie, to a private school. “I very much enjoy my life,” she said. “This money is enough for me!”

‘A $1,000 Life’

“If you work $300 a month, you have a $300 apartment, a $300 car and a $300 life,” said Studio City nail salon owner Sandy Ly, 41. “If you work $1,000 a month, you have a $1,000 life.”

Some Vietnamese refugees embraced the nail business when they discovered that their job opportunities in the United States were limited by a language or education gap.

Sherman Oaks manicurist Susan Nguyen, 35, is a former chemistry teacher who says she spent 11 months in a Vietnamese jail after she was caught trying to flee the country. “I was so afraid when I came,” she said. “Everything was very, very strange and different--and big. And I didn’t speak English. I didn’t know how I’d do here.

“When I came here I didn’t know what to do. My sister-in-law told me to study the nail. I did it because I didn’t have an idea. She had friends who did nails. She said it may be easier than another job, than computers.”

“Going to job interviews is impossible,” said Sandy Ly. “They ask you so many things you don’t understand and you have to lie. They say, ‘Do you have experience?’ and you say, ‘Oh, yes!’ But no. It’s terrible. We’re used to telling the truth.”

Local cosmetology schools report an influx of Vietnamese students in the last five years. A spokesman for the Marinello School of Beauty, a chain with 16 facilities, including one in Reseda and another in North Hollywood, said Vietnamese make up about 40% of all students, compared to 2% 10 years ago. Many schools offer the 10-week manicuring course--mandatory for state licensing--in Vietnamese (as well as Thai, Korean, Spanish, Japanese and other languages). The state allows manicurists-to-be to bring along an interpreter for the licensing exam.

No Diploma

“Manicuring is one of the few professions people can enter without so much as a high school diploma,” said Jeff Weir, assistant executive officer with the cosmetology board, which requires that professional manicurist applicants be 17 and have 350 hours of training in an accredited beauty school. “And we don’t want to change that.”

According to Mary Jo Price, 53, a Studio City cosmetologist, manicuring is “nothing but a personality business. If you can do a good set of nails and you’ve got a good personality, you’ve got it made. Sometimes you don’t even have to do good nails.”

The customer “doesn’t care if you speak English well,” Tammie Ly said. “Sometimes they even like to teach you.”

Low capitalization is another plus. With an investment of about $1,500 in equipment--a table, chair and tools--and as little as $800 a month rent for a mini-mall spot, many manicurists are rolling.

“Depending on the weakness of the landlord, a nail shop can go in for no money down and six months free rent just to fill the place,” said Bob Heyman, a Valley real estate developer whose corner malls are home to growing numbers of nail salons. “These businesses satisfy the need for the

instant market. You have the instant dry cleaner, the instant doughnut and, now, the instant nail.”

Competition Stiff

Some owners of more established salons say they are feeling the competition.

“They’re working circles around us,” said Price, who added that she has worked hard not to lose customers.

“It makes me wonder if we need to re-evaluate our customers. Maybe we haven’t been appreciative enough, made them feel cherished enough. Maybe we’ve even taken them for granted.”

The Vietnamese shops “have revolutionized the whole idea of having your nails done,” said Rochelle Nathan, who lives in Studio City and has her nails done at Price’s salon. “It used to be a luxury. Now it’s for everyone--all the time.”

A chichi Encino beauty salon might charge $45 for sculptured nails, $10 for a manicure or $40 for Chinese silk nail (a process in which nails are strengthened with silk fibers). Vietnamese salons typically charge $25 for sculptured nails, $20 for Chinese silk and $12 for the two-in-one special: a manicure and a pedicure. In addition, Vietnamese proprietors have a reputation for efficiency and long workdays.

Owners of more established salons say efficiency can translate into impersonal service.

But Judith Allen, director of Newberry School of Beauty in Granada Hills, which has 53 manicuring students, says the Vietnamese in her classes are more skilled, more serious and more mindful of perfecting their craft than the average student.

‘They Work, Work, Work’

“They become excellent manicurists because they work, work, work and practice,” Allen said. “They are very concerned about doing everything correctly. They can afford to charge less because, as they’re so fast, they end up working in volume.”

Doan says the ability to have their children at work is another reason why Vietnamese women are attracted to the profession.

“Manicuring is so suited to the Vietnamese community because the women can keep their children with them all day,” he said. “They can make flexible hours. They spend their time in a good, clean--even high-class--environment. It’s family.”

Minh Tran, 32, Tammie Ly’s husband, said: “I don’t want Tammie to work for anyone. I don’t want anyone to bother her. I watch the news. I see killings; terrible, terrible things. If she went out to a job, I would be very afraid. I wouldn’t know what would happen to her.

“But with her here,” he added, “I feel great. I know where she is. She is with clients who are so nice to her. I feel secure.”

“It’s fun to be American; you can do anything you want,” said Tammie Ly, who has gone California with permed and lightened hair, designer jeans and “tiny tops I love because you can see my stomach.”

Sometimes she dreams of becoming a doctor to help her ailing mother in Vietnam. “But I don’t tell people because they’ll laugh,” she said. “And not now. Now, this is what I do because it’s the way for Vietnamese women to make money easy. This is what I can do.

“And I am very lucky, you know? I love L.A. I keep kissing it all the time.”