Hu-mani-ty: Shining Light on Vietnamese Women Nail Technicians

When the Vietnam War is taught in mandated US history classes, Vietnam is often depicted as the unquestioned enemy. The architects of American history tend to selectively impose victimhood upon themselves in retrospect, deflecting attention from a historical perception of Americans as imperial aggressors. Within this narrative, Vietnamese people impacted by the Vietnam War — whether as guerrilla fighters, civilians, refugees, or political subjects — are either made invisible or treated as de facto antagonists. Even as American news coverage of the war grew more critical over the two decades of conflict, largely oriented around the struggles endured by American soldiers, the Vietnamese themselves were treated as peripheral to their own conflict. As such, the perception of Vietnamese immigrants were inevitably ill-received and skewed by years of American propaganda when they later sought refuge in America.

Through these processes of writing and retelling history that repeats its biases, many lose sight of Vietnamese Americans’ relevancy in American history. This project seeks to synthesize both Vietnamese and American identity by accounting for Vietnamese American women’s experience working as nail technicians in New York City. These women are neither the enemy nor helpless; their resilience is reflected in their pride and determination. Though these qualities are not mentioned in the textbooks, they continue to exist.

To realize the weight of why they came to America in the first place, we must understand the origins and aftermath of the Vietnam War itself.

The Vietnam War, officially recorded as beginning in 1955 and ending in 1975, emerged as one of the proxy wars during the Cold War between the United States and the USSR. Motivated by a fear of the global spread of communism, the United States and its military and intelligence apparatuses engaged in a number of global conflicts and attempted regime changes. In Vietnam, which had historically been colonized first by the French, then by the Japanese, Communist political leader Ho Chi Minh used the power vacuum following Japan's defeat in World War II to establish the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or a Northern Vietnamese Communist state. South Vietnam, backed by France, the United States, and other anti-Communist allies, served as the stronghold for power oriented around maintaining the colonial order. 

One of the United States' main fears driving the Cold War was the "domino theory," which presumed that as a communist government rose to power in one nations, it would lead to the spread of communism to neighboring nations, which would then fall like dominoes.^¹ This logic was not grounded in reality — colonized and formerly colonized nations' struggles for independence were complex and regionally specific — but it was nevertheless used as one of the central justifications for the United States' intervention in Vietnam. Western powers clung to the narrative of the domino theory, using it to justify regime takeovers and United States-sponsored coups in instances in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The CIA, established by President Harry S. Truman in 1947, was one of the key tools used by the United States to stoke regional conflict and to carry out covert operations across the globe in the name of "eradicating communism."^¹ Even in instances where nations were organizing for independence but not seeking to establish a Communist government, the United States military and counterintelligence apparatuses interpreted any anti-colonial struggle as an embrace of communist ideals, justifying and necessitating CIA intervention. 

The Vietnam War was a largely unpopular war amongst the American public, though not necessarily out of a sense of empathy or solidarity with the Vietnamese. While World War II and the threat of global fascism consolidating had unified the nation in a fragile but effective show of patriotism, the Vietnam War from its inception appeared to be a war without clear purpose. Newsreels from World War II and the Korean War had been disseminated widely, but the Vietnam War was the first global conflict to be televised, and in many cases, to be broadcast directly into the public's living rooms. 

Though many Americans initially accepted the government's rationale that military intervention was needed to prevent the spread of communism, the imposition of a mandatory draft for young American men was wildly unpopular, and began to sway the public's opinions. The war was particularly unpopular amongst young people and students, who drew connections between anti-war protest and other Civil Rights movements of the time, while also fearing the long reach of the military draft. As TV coverage exposed the violence that young men in America's military experienced — to say nothing of the violence they in turn inflicted — race and class became key polarizing factors for how everyday Americans viewed the war. It is important to note that while the public's enthusiasm for the war had soured, even sympathetic audiences largely decentered America's imperialistic desires for Southeast Asia and instead highlighted the experiences of American soldiers. As a result, the Vietnamese population's experiences were often marginalized or ignored. 

As anti-war sentiments emerged and coalesced over the two decades of military conflict, so did student protest movements. Based in college campuses across the country, from UC Berkeley to CUNY, these efforts advocated for draft resistance and protested the violent nature of the war. They also protested developments in chemical warfare and military technology, as well as expansions of the war effort. For example, in May of 1970, students at the University of Washington organized a strike after President Nixon expanded military forces into Cambodia. Protests at Kent State University in Ohio over the same incident turned deadly, as troopers from the Ohio National Guard fired upon unarmed students, killing four.^¹ 

Though an over-emphasis on student groups like SDS often erase their presence, Asian Americans students were particularly involved in anti-war advocacy. They specifically objected to how the Vietnam War was rooted in US imperialism. Frameworks of anti-colonialism and imperialism were important grounds for establishing cross-racial solidarity. The Third World Liberation Front, in particular, was one of the most prominent multi-racial radical student coalitions that formed to protest American racism, conditions on campus, and the Vietnam War, drawing connections between all of the above themes. Other college organizations had popped up across the country, such as the Asian American Political Alliance and the Oriental Student Union, which became hubs for anti-colonial activism. Some activist groups in New York City sprouted and also promoted these efforts, like I Wor Kuen and Asian Americans for Action. For more information about I Wor Kuen, read fellow Youth Researcher Emma's exhibit.

Beyond the protests, Vietnamese women continued to suffer. The Vietnam War officially ended with the Fall of Saigon in 1975, when North Vietnam forces seized South Vietnam’s capitol and American military forces made their conclusive retreat. Two decades of Western military force had inflicted devastation upon the Vietnamese people and land; in the midst of that reckoning, three distinct waves of refugees to America emerged.

The first wave of Vietnamese refugees occurred immediately before and after the Fall of Saigon.^¹ With the assistance of the United States, more than 100,000 South Vietnamese refugees arrived in Guam. Most of them had fled on US-sponsored evacuation airlift flights.^¹ These efforts are commonly known as Operation New Life.^¹

This group of refugees are often referred to as the “elite” group, as they consisted of those with close relations to South Vietnamese military and high-status figures that were at higher risk of experiencing retaliation for their support of the South Vietnamese US-backed regime. Those who worked under US authority or for the Southern Vietnamese government, as well as their families, were prioritized.^¹ Because of their relatively high socioeconomic status, they were able to capitalize on the opportunity of receiving medical support and processing assistance that would facilitate their resettlement in the US. Because of their political affiliations — i.e., their distance from communism — they received assistance to obtain naturalization and begin their new lives in America. Many of this first wave of refugees resettled on America's West Coast, especially in California.^¹ They needed to find new jobs and new lines of work, and as such, new professions emerged to meet their needs.^¹ 

Actress Tippi Hedren, best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) was an active volunteer in facilitating aid for refugee camps. At Camp Hope in Northern California, the first documented non-military resettlement camp for Vietnamese refugees in the US, Hedren organized sewing and typing classes for Vietnamese women to prepare them for pink-collar work in America.^¹ However, some Vietnamese women, such as Thuan Le, “didn't belong in either [profession].” Le and other Vietnamese women noticed Hedren's decorated nails and admired them, inspiring the actress to bring Dusty Coots Butera, her manicurist, to Camp Hope to host a nail salon school to teach them basic techniques.^¹ Butera would later explain how Hedren and her “would fly up for the weekend and there they were, eager, shiny faces like children, and we got started on the things we did in those days. We were wrapping nails with paper.”^¹ This technique was called the Juliette Wrap.

This first nail salon school consisted of 20 Vietnamese women. After being trained by Butera, they had a new set of skills and were able to obtain American employment, despite having lower levels of English proficiency. The nail salon industry opened up new opportunities for the first wave of Vietnamese refugees, and helped provide a field that could transcend the language barrier. Many of the Vietnamese women in this first wave were wives of military personnel.^¹ With their training, they were able to work independently of their husbands and to assert a newfound feminine agency. This practice, and the initial training tools to enter the nail industry, would continue to be handed down to other Vietnamese women in the community as more refugees settled.

However, it's important to note that these women were provided with the opportunity to learn about nail salon work because they were a part of this first wave of refugees, who were regarded as politically safe in the American context based on their prior support for South Vietnam. This value judgment, made and supported by American "humanitarian" and military programs, granted them more access to vocational training than subsequent waves of refugees, who would have far less resources for resettlement.

Additionally, although Tippi Hedren’s unique contribution to the refugee resettlement effort helped integrate some Vietnamese workers into the American economy, acknowledging her identity as a famous white woman is crucial to shifting how we can highlight these Vietnamese women’s stories.^¹ Oftentimes, women of color, especially immigrants, are only included in the historical record as attached to the names of the white Americans “saving” them. Overly centering Hedren’s role, while significant, has perpetuated unwritten, enduring records of subsequent nail technicians.

This origin didn’t result in the accomplishment of the “American Dream.” It was a means of survival for Vietnamese women refugees who had no other option but to rely on US-sponsored aid and training programs to find viable employment. The model minority myth is uplifted by the fallacious narrative that white Americans have liberated Vietnamese refugees, when in actuality, they dealt with the resources they had to support themselves in America. Differences — in terms of class, ethnicity, or otherwise — between this wave of refugees and the two that would follow, however, would introduce new interethnic tension between Vietnamese Americans across the different waves of immigration.

Most document the second wave of Vietnamese refugees as peaking in 1978, three years after the Fall of Saigon. The refugees in this group, over two million South Vietnamese citizens, were known as the “boat people.” They fled on small fishing boats, sparking a refugee crisis. Most sought asylum in nearby nations, primarily Thailand, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.

The refugees in this wave had different characteristics than those of the first wave, who were considered relatively "elite" and airlifted out of Saigon. Those who remained now lived in a reunified Vietnam, and one attempting to navigate the tense transition from a capitalist to a socialist economy.^¹ Many who lived in the southern hub of Ho Chi Minh City were Hoa, a Chinese ethnic minority group.^¹ The new economic restrictions disproportionately affected them, leading to protests and violent conflicts between the Hoa and the Southern Vietnamese government. It would become clear that this was a deliberate campaign of ethnic persecution, with the intended goal of driving the Hoa people out of Vietnam. 

However, nearby countries were not prepared for an influx of refugees at the pace they were arriving. The rapidly increasing population of boat people resulted in Malaysia and Thailand turning them away, mainly due to massive numbers of Hoa people from Southern Vietnam escaping.^¹ Those who managed to make it out were scarcely supported by the US government as well, experiencing increased “anti-immigrant sentiments” and US refugee programs limiting their resources due to the dwindling American economy.^¹ As a result, the US pushed for these refugees to work. However, because many boat people were from rural communities and were generally less educated, they were often thrust into exploitative, laborious conditions without the chance to learn English.^¹

Though it's difficult to find in the archives, we know more about these conditions from accounts of those who experienced them. One Vietnamese woman named Catherine Hann shared her story in 1981, when she fled South Vietnam on a boat to Malaysia and eventually resettled in the United States, later becoming a nail technician.^¹ Her diary details the construction of the boat that her family would use to sail to Thailand, her stay at the Pulau Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia, and her initial experiences in the United States. 

Hann attempted to open up her own nail salon in 1996 after she decided to quit working at the Watkins-Johnson’s company due to overtime and getting underpaid. However, she experienced issues with the landlord and staffing shortages, causing her to close the business. Despite this, even after working at Hughes Network Systems and Orbital Sciences Corporation, she decided to apply to work at Totally Polished, a nail salon on her commute to work, and now works there full-time.^¹ Her diary is one of the few first-person narratives of Vietnamese refugee resettlement that has been preserved in a national institution (the Smithsonian), and is an important representation of Vietnamese women's resilience and ingenuity.

The third wave of Vietnamese refugees dates from the late 1980s onwards, primarily consisting of Amerasians, the children of US soldiers and Vietnamese women that were left behind in Vietnam, and war prisoners and their families. The American Indochinese community grew greatly in this moment due to refugees escaping from the Vietnam War and Nixon’s carpet-bombing in Cambodia.^¹ You can read more about this in Sothea's forthcoming exhibit, The Breaking and Making of Little Cambodia.

Roughly 2,250 Indochinese refugees initially settled in New York City, with the “Bronx and Brooklyn [being] the two boroughs of New York City where Indochinese refugees were resettled in large numbers.”^¹ By 1985, there were "nearly 20,000 Indochinese refugees in New York City, according to the association [NYANA], including 13,300 from Vietnam, 6,000 from Cambodia, and 350 from Laos."^¹ Many were placed into buildings in the same neighborhoods in Brooklyn or the Bronx with the help of refugee agencies like the International Rescue Committee, Catholic Relief Services, or the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA). But they confronted a new set of problems, in addition to the trauma and disorientation they experienced in a sprawling and sometimes dangerous new city. 

In many cases, the apartment buildings they were placed in were deteriorating or in otherwise poor conditions, while the surrounding neighborhoods were unsafe and difficult to navigate without language skills. In response, NYANA and other city agencies helped develop the Refugee Urban Skills Project, which aimed to educate new refugees on how to navigate life in New York City by connecting them with local agencies and resources.^¹ As one caseworker from RUSP noted, "We act as counselors, educators, mediators, but our main job is empowerment - convincing the refugees they can solve their own problems."^¹ This could look like anything from helping tenants in the same building collectively negotiate their leases and building repairs, helping recent refugees learn to navigate the subway, or answering families' questions about their children's safety in neighborhood schools. 

The refugees that attempted to find their footing in this third wave also were dealing with immense amounts of grief and trauma. Like many others, Loi Thi Nghiem immigrated to the US with only some of her family members, and had to grieve leaving family members behind to uncertain fates. She remembered that “[her mother crie[d] every night...She left four children behind.”^¹ Another refugee, Anh Hoang Dinh, arrived in the Bronx with his wife and four children, no money, and a persistent case of malaria. In a New York Times article, Mr. Dinh said, “I am in a deep depression... We have nothing. We lost everything but our lives. We need money.”^¹

New York City's nail salon industry is mainly dominated by Vietnamese women, creating an ethnic niche due to “the arrival of new Vietnamese who take advantage of the institutional arrangements and social networks that earlier Vietnamese women immigrants put in place.”^¹

It is significant to mention that “Vietnamese family is customarily a large, patriarchal” dynamic. However, it “also contains a strong tradition of female autonomy and independence.” For many women, this was because of their experience in the beauty industry, which allowed them to be involved in financing and supporting their families as refugees.^¹ Yet despite the autonomy gained within the familial structure, being in an industry that places its workers in a subservient role effectively put nail salon workers in a position to be taken advantage of by people outside of their family.

Due to the relatively small population compared to other AAPI immigrants working in nail salons, “New York City (and nearby New Jersey) is the one area where Vietnamese are not the main ethnic group manicurists.”^¹ Studies have found the demographics to be more concentrated in California and Massachusetts. Although only 14% of nail salon technicians/workers are Vietnamese in New York City, 73% are Asian/Pacific Islander and 84.4% “identify as women and are predominantly women of color.”^¹

A group of nail salon workers in the photo above, the majority being women of color, rallied in Bryant Park in 2023, in support of the Nail Salon Minimum Standards Council Act. As of the writing of this exhibit, the bill has still not passed in New York's state legislature.^¹ 

Catherine Kien, a Vietnamese organizer in the Bronx with Mekong NYC, emphasized in an interview with AsAmNews that “this is a gender and race issue” and that the model minority myth is not applicable to “poor, working Southeast Asian women and refugees... Nail salon work is all we know.”^¹

Mekong NYC is a community-based organization that seeks to bring dignity to Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans, sponsoring many campaigns aimed towards language justice and direct service. When I had the opportunity to speak with Kien herself, she told me how their immigrant backgrounds “resettled into very disinvested communities in the Bronx.”

“Even though our community is small, it is very mighty.”

Vietnamese women have passed on their positions in the nail salon industry to other Vietnamese women seeking employment after coming to America. Amongst these women, they have repeated the same sentiment: they didn’t want to be nail techs, they had to be.

“It was like a lifeline for a lot of our community members, and it was like that thirty, forty years ago, and it’s like that today I think.”

“This is a huge women’s issue…the unfortunate reality is that this inhospitable environment leads to terrible reproductive outcomes for them.”

While interacting and organizing with nail technicians, Kien talked with some women that presented with reproductive health issues, including miscarriages and infertility. As noted in a Cornell University research report on precarity and working conditions in New York's nail salons, "three chemicals dubbed the “toxic trio”—formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and toluene—are widely used in nail products and have been associated in other settings with longterm effects including risk of reproductive harm, cognitive development issues, cancer, and various forms of irritation and allergies."^¹ In combination with the apparent poor air quality in these nail salons, it is no surprise that these harmful chemicals damage women’s physical and reproductive health.

The vast expansion of the nail salon industry has been obscured by the model minority myth, in many ways. Kien expands on her feelings upon the model minority myth, stating that because of how Southeast Asians are perceived in America as East Asians, the differences in their immigrant experiences are erased. As a result, Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees have experienced a lack of resources to support them because of the assumption that they “don’t need” them. To perpetuate the label of “immigrant success story” upon these communities will only continue to shy away from what they need to live comfortably in America, not just survive.

As low-paid immigrants of color, nail technicians' precarious status often is directly at odds with their inclination to advocate for themselves. Nail salon workers are more likely than many other industries to have a fellow immigrant as their boss.^¹ For some workers, their employer is of the same ethnic background, or even of the same family. The presence of co-ethnic owners and workers makes it easier to enter the industry, but it presents complications within labor relations that can make worker organizing difficult. Clarissa's exhibit on female garment workers organizing in Chinatown in the 1980s touches upon many similar dynamics. 

Not only do Vietnamese women nail technicians endure poor and unsafe working conditions, but they also experience frequent ethnic bias and misogyny, both from employers and customers. Being in close proximity of white women and spending their days beautifying them establishes a hierarchy that places Vietnamese women, and their needs, below that of whiteness. 

Speaking with a Vietnamese nail technician who would like to stay anonymous, I asked, “How do you feel when painting a customer’s nails?”

She replied, “I believe I get to have a moment where everything is clear. Their hands are softer than mine. See, (takes my hand into hers and rubs her hand against mine) so harsh! I think that is when everything is clear.”

Such labor visibly has a physical toll on these women, making them feel less beautiful. When we become ignorant to their struggles, we not only strip them of their agency, but also their femininity.

When asking if she would do another job, the thought didn’t seem to occur to her before.

“I can’t do anything else, where would I go? I know how to do nails now! I should keep doing them!…There is nothing better for me to do, so I have to be okay with it or else my family and I will just be homeless.”

Given their limited English skills, many nail technicians feel trapped within their vocation and are not necessarily happy. As a result of their work, their womanhood is threatened while operating upon the very thing that can be used as a marker to define what being a woman entails: their painted nails.

Note: All interviews are translated to English and because of that, we must recognize that these translations consider the differences in Vietnamese and English, and how their intentions are portrayed.

When I spoke with Connie and Debbie, two sisters who work together in Chinatown, they provided insight on their immigration process to New York City and their livelihoods now as nail technicians.

As a unique ethnicity, Chinese Vietnamese, also known as the Hoa people, experienced discrimination even in Vietnam. In Connie and Debbie's case, this persecution is what prompted their father to flee the country.

What was life like back in Vietnam and why did you immigrate?

Our dad was a carpenter and had a business. The business was gone then because of the Vietnam War, so we had to leave. We were teenagers; 14-15 years old!

(Debbie) I didn’t even know where I was going! My mom said my dad is going to take me somewhere far away and I just went; I didn’t know what far away was.

(Connie + Debbie) They didn’t like the Chinese people and our dad wanted us to move away. Our dad wanted to come to New York City because there were a lot of Chinese people. We only spoke Chinese; we weren’t allowed to speak Vietnamese at home; never!

How did you immigrate?

(Debbie) I went on a boat with my two brothers, dad, and two cousins in 1981. My mom paid in gold, I don’t know how much, but she paid in gold for us to get on the boat. We spent three days and four nights on our way to Thailand, but we were attacked seven times by Thai pirates. We spent half a year in Thailand and then half a year in the Philippines. In Thailand, we went through processing to then go to the Philippines, where we attended school for ESL classes. Both adults and children had to attend. In the Philippines, we stayed in two story buildings, and it was 5-6 people. But in Thailand, it was 20 people in a flat.

(Connie) I went on a plane with my sister and mom to Thailand in 1987 after Debbie and the rest of my family petitioned for us to be processed in Thailand and legally immigrate to the US.

How was life when you came to the US?

We experienced xenophobia, especially during the pandemic.

How did you first learn about working in nail salons?

We worked part time in a clothing factory while also going to high school. We were part of a church, so they took care of our family by giving us food and opportunities for jobs. We didn’t feel like we were suffering like the typical immigrant because we got support from the church. Someone from the church also got our dad a job, kind of like a sponsor.

(Debbie) I worked in a nail salon after, and just kept working.

(Connie) I open, I close for my boss. Why did I keep doing that? So I quit; there was no air conditioning either!

Hearing Connie and Debbie’s note on the pandemic particularly contributing to their experiences with xenophobia, I began to notice this theme throughout my other interviews.

Asking another nail technician about how operating as a Vietnamese American during the pandemic was, she shared the following anecdote:

Yeah, I speak Vietnamese, I come from Vietnam, I look Vietnamese. When COVID came around, people were looking around for any excuse to hurt the business. I have a Zelle for tips and when customers said they would tip and left, I would go home and check my phone and they never tipped.

Did you yourself feel hurt by this?

No, not hurt. I don’t like liars, but it was bad for the business. Bad business means no money and no money means I can’t provide for my child. Listen, I work very long hours. All of that time for what! No tips!

Beyond the transactional aspect of being a nail technician, there came the question of womanhood.

I want to ask something, but again, we can skip or stop whenever you want. Have you ever thought about what it means to be a woman doing your job right now?

Like if I was a man painting nails? [laughs]

[laughs] No, sorry. What I meant to ask was if you thought about the fact that you’re a woman painting other women’s nails.

I don’t. [Doesn’t answer for ~two minutes as she files a client’s nails.]

I grew up in Saigon, in a city, so not very different from here [New York City]. I wore an all white ao dai to school. You know this?

Sure, I saw pictures of my mother wearing it. It was the school uniform, right?

Yes, it was so beautiful! But you understand the war when Americans came too. So when I got on that boat, we couldn’t bring anything. Just the necessities. I left my white ao dai behind, you know? It was not necessary. I’m telling you this because you can understand Vietnamese well, but look at me now. You think me or your mom wanted to do this? But I don’t want to ask for more; I’m already alive.

Note on Translation: Although I had translated “all white ao dai” from Vietnamese to English, I wanted to acknowledge that she had used “thuần khiết,” which means “pure.” In this way, she had described leaving behind what she believed beauty and girlhood was in its truest, purest form; her all white ao dai.

My mother herself works as a nail technician, and I grew up watching her work from the early morning until late into the night. She would often wait for clients to walk in, which meant she'd stay the entire day.

I was curious about this, which is what initially inspired me to create this project and prompted me to conduct an oral history interview with her.

I wanted to learn more about her thoughts on working at a nail salon. I also wanted to know if there was anything specific tying her to continue to work there, both as a woman and as a mother. 

Can you tell me about where you grew up and what it was like before coming to the US?

Yes, my name is Tram, and my English name is Tracy. I was born and raised in Saigon.

How did you first learn about working in nail salons?

I came to the United States and started doing nails, and I've been doing it ever since.

Who taught you how to do nails and how was the learning process?

I went to a nail technician school here because a lot of Vietnamese were doing it too, and completed the course, and then I took the exam to get my nail technician license.

Could you tell me what a regular workday is like for you?

I go to work at around 8:30 in the morning and work until about 6:30 in the evening before going home.

How does your body feel at the end of a workday?

After a day's work, I feel tired, but I have to keep going to make a living.

Are there any skills you've developed that you're particularly proud of?

I'm always proud of myself for not compromising my values ​​for money.

How does this job connect to your responsibilities to your family either in America or back in Vietnam?

My job has been and continues to provide me with an income so that I can... support [my] children and help my family back home. In Vietnam, all of the other women worked, so I don’t feel bad about going to work all the time; my children take care of themselves.

What do you think about nail salons? Is it just a workplace to you?

In my opinion, they are just workplaces.

How do customers usually treat you?

Customers are usually nice, but I've also encountered some customers who wanted to cause trouble and didn't want to pay for the service.

How do you see yourself as a nail technician?

Many people think that being a nail technician is a low-status job, but I don't think so. I think some customers think they’re better than me because I paint their nails, but I really don’t think so.

Is there anything you would’ve liked me to ask or talk about?

I would like you to ask the question: 'Why do you do this job and do you like this job?' I don't like this job, but I still do it because I haven't found another job that suits me better yet. I know nails, that’s all I know… except maybe making pho. Thank you for interviewing me.”

My mother is my inspiration to work harder as a first-generation immigrant, especially as her daughter, who doesn't want to work in the service industry as she did. Many immigrants sought an improved future in America, escaping from their home countries. Not only is it crucial to spread awareness about how immigrants comprise most of the working class, but it's also important to emphasize that these women aren’t just products of the war; their identity extends beyond refuge.

This exhibit is for women of color in New York City, like my mother, who’ve ever felt invisible or ostracized in America.

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