Posted on 05/04/2015 8:14:53 AM PDT by keat
When actress Tippi Hedren visited a Vietnamese refugee camp in California 40 years ago, the Hollywood star's long, polished fingernails dazzled the women there.
Hedren flew in her personal manicurist to teach a group of 20 refugees the art of manicures. Those 20 women - mainly the wives of high-ranking military officers and at least one woman who worked in military intelligence - went on to transform the industry, which is now worth about $8bn (£5.2bn) and is dominated by Vietnamese Americans.
"We were trying to find vocations for them," says Hedren, who is perhaps best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and for running a wildcat sanctuary at her home in Southern California.
"I brought in seamstresses and typists - any way for them to learn something. And they loved my fingernails."
Hope Village, the refugee camp, was in Northern California near Sacramento. Aside from flying in her personal manicurist, Hedren recruited a local beauty school to help teach the women. When they graduated, Hedren helped get them jobs all over Southern California.
"I loved these women so much that I wanted something good to happen for them after losing literally everything," Hedren told the BBC from a museum she is building next to her home. The museum includes Hollywood memorabilia, a few photos of the women at Camp Hope and awards she's won from the nail care industry.
"Some of them lost their entire family and everything they had in Vietnam: their homes; their jobs; their friends - everything was gone. They lost even their own country."
The Vietnamese gave the nail salon business a radical makeover.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
“If only the native born black communities would learn from the refugees from Vietnam......”
Or they could even learn from the West Indian and African immigrants in New York, because the majority of black lawyers and doctors in Harlem are of West Indian or recent African immigrant descent.
I know lots of blacks that are successful - but not just in one industry like in the article. (Heck - isn’t the article and Tippi somehow racist!?)
Pro-sports might be an exception - lots of blacks do very well in pro sports. I’m not sure if it is $8 billion - but their cumulative salaries would be pretty large.
One of my nephew's best friends is the son of parents who escaped from Vietnam and were relocated to North Dakota. He's now a doctor.
I met the kid back in the winter of 2003 on a ski trip my nephew invited me on. You know how people are stereotyped, well when I asked Vu where he was from, he said North Dakota. I asked him if he ever pheasant hunted out there (thinking of course Vietnamese people don't hunt) and he laughed and said that's all he did in the fall while growing up and would return there whenever his schooling allowed it.
As a side note, one of my best friend's girlfriend of 18 years is a Vietnamese refugee and her son went to college and is now a producer for The Discovery Channel.........
Very cool story.
Wayda go, Working Girl’s mommy!
You ever seen Barbershop?
Don’t forget the service stations!
When you hear a story like this, doesn’t it make you wonder how people who came to this country with nothing were able to survive and prosper? And could we do the same process with other people and achieve good results?
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I worked as a clerk with a arrived (within a year) viet gal with 2 kids who within that year owned the home she lived in and owned a rental house. She told me she got virtually interest free govt loans and other benefits. All this as I was trying to get a home with a VA loan at about 8.5% interest. Color me unimpressed by their survvival and prosperity. Some of us fought for things we acquire, others get it handed to them (not unlike todays amnasty/asylum fakers).
*this was in 1974 or so *
Because they are Motel Sikhs?
Because they scratched the dot and won the motel. ;-)
Great story. Thanks for posting it.
L
>> Because they are Motel Sikhs?
Very clever. Nice try!
But I'm sorry to inform you that the motel owners aren't Sikhs or Seeks or Sicks or Six. They are plain old, run-of-the mill Hindus, who don't wear turbans, and who mostly carry the "Patel" surname. Sikhs, on the other hand, wear turbans, and they usually carry the "Singh" surname.
>> Don’t forget the service stations! <<
I didn’t know they were “ethnically monopolized” in any particular area. In my neighborhood, they are owned by Vietnamese, Indians, Koreans, Hispanics and even Appalachian hillbillies — to name only a few of the the more prominent tribes.
Yup. Around here, it’s either an Arab terrorist, or a Hindu terrorist.
(Incidentally, both religions are known for violence. There was a cleansing of Christians in [northern?] India last week, where Hindus ended up killing or driving them off in a particular town.)
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