It’s an intimate public space, one of the few where we touch a stranger. Someone holds our hands and massages our feet in a commonplace, affordable transaction. And what made it affordable was the Vietnam War.

Many of the women at the Hope Village refugee camp had been wives of high-ranking generals and colonels, accustomed to a posh standard of living. Now they had almost nothing, and they needed to care for their children. When a blond movie star visited, they admired her long, shiny nails. This gave her an idea.

Tippi Hedren was famous for Hitchcock’s The Birds, but her greatest legacy may be her unintentional democratization of the manicure. In 1975, salon manicures cost $50—over $300 in 2026, adjusted for inflation. After visiting Hope Village, she asked her Beverly Hills manicurist, Dusty Coots, to train the refugees.

It was a tiny seed that’s grown into an $8 billion industry, an entire immigrant infrastructure of jobs, connections, and ownership. The aesthetics today are a far cry from Hedren’s straightforward red nails; starting in the 1980s, African American clients in Los Angeles popularized decorated acrylic nails, helping create a nail culture of playful, extravagant designs that spread across the country.

Now, almost anybody can afford the human touch of a manicure. The women who arrived at Hope Village, and thousands of “boat people” who came after them, built businesses, raised families, sent their children to college. Whole lives, built around the small mercy of touching and being touched.

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Links:

• How Vietnamese Americans Took Over The Nails Business: A Documentary – Lulu Garcia-Navarro, NPR Weekend Edition, May 19, 2019

  
  

• Nailed It documentary - Adele Free Pham, 2019

  
  

• 50 years later, the fall of Saigon still resonates throughout Houston’s Vietnamese diaspora – Dion Nissenbaum and Hillary Ma, Houston Landing, April 28, 2025

  
  

• Video: Tippi Hedren's nails looking good in The Birds

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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