Pedicur-ious

Yesterday Kar and I got pedicures. We went to a little place in West Portal where two women from Vietnam did our feet, and another did Kar's hands. I got blue nail polish, my usual. A real boy color. It's gorgeous.

I also get my feet done in a little place on my block in New York City, though the women there tend to be Korean and Chinese.

I'd like to know what the deal is. Do these women come to the US knowing that they'll be doing pedicures? Are they paid a decent wage? What kind of promises are made? What kind of contracts are signed? Are they offered ESL classes? The woman who did my feet yesterday, Mimi, could only say hello; but when I asked how she was doing, she didn't understand, and had to get help from one of the other women, My, who'd been in America for 10 years and spoke fluent English with hardly any accent.

I'd like to know what the deal is. There seems to be a large population of Asian women working in these nail salons, most of whom don't speak English or at any rate not very well. Are they refugees? Are they being exploited? Why is the demographic of nail salon employees so consistent? There are laws in the US that prevent discrimination, so why would nail salons be populated exclusively with Asian women? There's something going on there. Is it just simple nepotism, or is it some form of indentured servitude?

Those are some of the thoughts that go through my mind whenever I get my nails done. I'd like to find out more about this. I'd like to discover that actually there's a humanitarian program that places women from impoverished circumstances into this kind of employment in America, giving them ESL classes and preparing them for a further career in this country. But really I suspect it's something more along the lines of this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phillip-martin/nail-salons-and-human-tra_b_669076.html

Unfortunately the only way I can think of to really find out the truth is to engage in some time consuming, and probably illegal, activities. For example, wait near the store, and follow the women when they leave in the evening. Do they all go home to apartments? Do they all leave together in a van? It seems like tracking their movements after work would be a sort of creepy thing to do, if not downright stalkerly and break-the-law-ey.

So I just wonder. And every few months I get my feet done again. But I wish someone would find out the answer and tell me.