Description
Over the past 20 years, the number of Vietnamese people entering the UK ‘under the radar’ has been steadily increasing. The majority of these immigrants come from a few underdeveloped provinces of Central Vietnam and end up working in Vietnamese-run nail salons which have spread to every town and city, drawing the unwanted attention of police and other concerned about them being sites of exploitation and ‘modern slavery’. This paper is based on a pilot study conducted with Vietnamese research participants, both nail salon owners and workers with varying immigration status. It seeks to investigate the dynamics of debt, exploitation, solidarity and support within the recent Vietnamese migrant community, whilst contextualising these relationships within the wider challenges of the UK’s ‘hostile environment’ policies and present economic turbulences. Whilst affirming the agency of Vietnamese actors in carving out an economic niche for themselves, the benefits are unevenly distributed and opportunities for new migrants are diminishing as the nail salon market becomes saturated.
