Pittsburgh’s New Immigrants: Tough as nails, Vu finds home, career in Pittsburgh

Vietnamese immigrants are an important part of Pittsburgh, owning businesses and employing many workers.   - - Donna Poisl

By Phuong Tran / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Binh Vu is a pioneer in a business that is now synonymous with Vietnamese immigrants.

She operates a beauty salon and cosmetic nail business, B&T Salon & Spa, Downtown, employing as many as eight people at a time, and during the past 21 years, she has found herself becoming a Pittsburgher.

"This is a beautiful city with a great landscape," she said in a recent interview. "People are friendly. There is less competition, and the income is steady."

Ms. Vu is part of a 40-year-old tradition in America that began when the first Vietnamese immigrants arrived in California after the Vietnam War ended in 1973. Some of the women in those families learned how to apply artificial nails as a way of helping support their families and then got a big boost from actress Tippi Hedren (star of "The Birds"), who volunteered as a relief worker and helped teach manicuring to Vietnamese women in one of California's refugee camps.
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