School Says Its 2-Site Strategy Makes the Cut

At most schools, racial segregation is anathema. But at barber colleges, instructors say a little bit of ethnic separation sometimes can ease the teaching process.

At least that’s the reason American Barber College owner Claude Gipson gives for splitting his Los Angeles school between two campuses, one in South-Central that caters to African American students and clients, and another downtown, where the mostly Latino students practice on customers of all ethnicities.

American Barber College is one of six licensed Southern California schools exclusively devoted to barbering and the only one in the region with two campuses, according to state records.

Gipson hopes students eventually learn to cut all types of hair after passing the test for their barber’s licenses. But at first, he encourages black students to go to the South-Central location and others to attend classes downtown because, he said, the clients’ hair textures and styling needs are so different.

“Experience has taught us that instructors and students can have a difficult time learning on hair of a different race,” Gipson said.

Officials from the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees the Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology, said it is not unusual or illegal to establish locations to target certain groups or customize a curriculum to fit a student’s future clientele.

“It certainly makes sense as a good marketing niche if nothing else,” said Mike Luery, department spokesman. He added that the department has not received any segregation complaints about the college.

Eugene Williams said he disregarded Gipson’s advice and chose to attend classes downtown, where he is the sole black among the branch’s 17 students. Williams said he believes he will have more career opportunities if he practices haircutting on clients of all races.

“I’m not going to cheat myself,” said Williams, 49, who lives in the West Adams district. “I’m going to learn how to do it all so that I can go to any shop and step right in.”

The South-Central facility, near Slauson and Vermont avenues, has a bright stucco facade painted in the red, white and blue stripes of a barber pole.

None of the 25 students at that branch has had a customer who wasn’t black.

Gipson spends most days at that campus, where he and his family are as much a part of its atmosphere as the worn black barber chairs and scuffed pistachio green floor tiles.

His wife is an instructor, his daughter manages the office and graduates work at the barbershop next door.

Students and customers constantly call greetings to “Mr. G,” who chats with each of them before returning to the cashier’s office, a closet-sized room lined with bottles of hair wax and oil.

Raised in an east Texas orphanage, Gipson started cutting the other children’s hair when he was 12. He taught at other schools before buying the South-Central location in 1973, about 25 years after it was founded, and soon added the downtown branch.

The basic curriculum is the same at both branches, although the downtown branch’s diverse clientele means students have to master different tools and more styles so they can clip a black man’s fade as easily as they can trim a Latino’s. Doughnuts are provided each morning to prime students for lessons on such topics as shop management, scalp care and chemical straightening.

For those with no prior barber or cosmetology training, the college requires 1,500 hours of coursework.

The course costs about $6,000, including tuition, tools and registration fees, and students have up to three years to complete the requirements.

Students must cut 750 heads of hair before taking the state barber’s license exam. They work on customers willing to take a chance on a student’s skill in exchange for a price--usually $5--that is much lower than at regular barbershops. The college keeps the $5, and students take home the tips.

Depending on students’ experience, it can take from one haircut to three weeks to prove their competence.

Then they can work without the facility’s two instructors hovering constantly, although teachers still monitor them.

About 90% of American Barber College students pass the state barber licensing exam on their first try, according to records from the Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology. State officials said that rate is slightly above average.

On a recent Thursday at the South-Central campus, students in blue nylon smocks were cutting, trimming or shaving clients while others waited for more customers. A toddler squirmed in a booster seat as a student clipped his head, and a stone-faced man closed his eyes for the half-hour it took Kenneth Grant to trim his gray mane.

Grant, who lives in Leimert Park, hopes to open his own shop in South-Central.

He worked in construction before starting classes three months ago.

“I’m trying to get my career off the ground, and I feel like I’m part of a family at this place,” said Grant, 28, his large fingers squeezed through the handles of his scissors as he followed the curves of the customer’s head.

“Since I want to work in this community with this kind of people, it’s right for me to get really good at black hair rather than clutter up my mind with learning about every type of hair in the world.”

At the downtown branch, a steady stream of customers flows into the shop each afternoon, walking from nearby skid row and the jewelry district or arriving via the subway, which stops across the street at Pershing Square.

Selvin Buchanan has been coming from Compton every three weeks for the last five years to get a haircut at the downtown college.

He doesn’t go there if he’s in a hurry, because students’ haircuts can take up to an hour. But he doesn’t mind the chance to relax.

“I like their work, and it would get really expensive to get my hair cut that often by a professional,” said Buchanan, 34.

A few chairs down, instructor Blanca Polanco sighed when a customer grunted his disapproval at a student’s first attempts at trimming the man’s bushy gray hair.

As Polanco picked up the clippers to finish the job, she said learning to adapt to different hair types is key for people who want to work outside a certain ethnic community.

“Most of our students pay from their own pockets to get this license they’ll have for the rest of their lives,” said Polanco, 47.

“I think it’s good they have a chance to make the choice where they want to learn these skills.”