Ah, the joys of summer and leisure time – I treated myself to a pedicure.
Here in Houston, Vietnamese immigrants staff almost all of the strip center nail saloons.
The man of the family runs the cash register and guards all the money while the women beautify the customers.
Sitting there, being pampered I noticed the bent over shoulders of the woman who was working on me.
A century ago, the immigrant women were bent over sewing machines as they worked in the garment sweatshops. The garment industry is now outsourced to the Orient and today’s immigrants are hunched over the feet of the descendants of those exploited workers. And the exploitation still continues.
I wonder, when the 22nd century rolls around what task the hunched and bent shoulders will be doing?
2 comments:
I was just wondering the other day if there is a Vietnamese taboo about men touching the feet of a strange woman. At every nail salon I've been to, there's at least one guy who works as a manicurist, but never does pedicures.
They're all Vietnamese here, too. I love getting pedicures but at the same time I feel very uncomfortable having someone at my feet like that.
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