06/05/2026
Wow an interesting history of how a woman gave an opportunity to women refugees. And how it did change their lives! My sister is married to a Vietnamese refugee! He does not to manicures! He is a CPA and he owns his own very successful roofing business!
She noticed what the women were staring at.
In the spring of 1975, after the fall of Saigon, more than 120,000 Vietnamese refugees arrived in the United States. Many had lost everything — their homes, their professions, sometimes their families. They arrived with very little English and almost no clear path forward in a country that was not always welcoming.
Tippi Hedren, best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, was at that time working as an international relief coordinator for the nonprofit Food for the Hungry. She was assigned to Hope Village, a refugee camp near Sacramento, California, where she was trying to help the women there find a way to support themselves and their families.
She brought in seamstresses. She brought in typists. The women were polite and willing, but something else kept catching their attention.
Her nails.
Hedren had long, glossy, perfectly manicured nails — the kind of nails that were common in Beverly Hills but almost unheard of for ordinary women at the time. In the 1970s, a full manicure cost around $50, making it a luxury available mainly to Hollywood actresses and wealthy clients. The women at Hope Village were mesmerized.
Hedren noticed. And she had an idea.
She called her personal manicurist, Dusty Coots Butera, and asked if she would come to the camp. Dusty said yes. From then on, Dusty came to Hope Village once a week and taught a group of around 20 women a different technique at each visit — not basic nail care, but advanced techniques including silk nail wrapping, which was considered cutting-edge at the time.
When the training was complete, Hedren made sure the work meant something. She pushed every one of the women to sit the official cosmetic licensing exam — in English. Every single one of them passed. Then Hedren helped them find jobs in salons across Southern California.
“I was so proud,” she said later. “Every one of them passed the cosmetic license test in English, then off they went.”
What happened next was not planned by anyone.
Word spread through the close-knit Vietnamese refugee community that nail work was accessible, that the licensing was relatively quick and affordable, that it did not require advanced English, and that it could generate a stable income. Families told families. Friends told friends. Salons opened — and then more salons, and then more still.
The Vietnamese community also did something that transformed the industry entirely. They brought prices down dramatically. What had once cost $50 became $20. Manicures went from being a luxury for a few to an everyday treat for millions of American women who had never had access to them before.
By the end of the 1980s, Vietnamese-owned and operated nail salons had spread across the country — from big cities to small towns in every state. Today, Vietnamese Americans make up roughly half of all nail salon workers nationally, and around 80% of all nail technicians in Southern California. The industry is worth approximately $8 billion.
One of the original 20 women, Thuan Le, has said she had no idea at the time what she was setting in motion. “Back then, I just thought I should learn a craft to find a job that will help feed my family,” she said. “I didn’t expect that the nail business would become a huge industry, not only in the U.S., but around the world.”
Tippi Hedren is now known as the Godmother of the Vietnamese nail industry. She and the original 20 women still gather for reunions, decades later — 20 women who arrived with nothing, and a woman who noticed what they were looking at and decided to do something about it.
The second generation became doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business owners — built on the foundation their parents created with their hands, one nail at a time.
It started with glossy nails, a curious glance, and a phone call to a manicurist named Dusty.
Sometimes that is all it takes.
