Photo by Jon Anderson
Oahn "Jenna" Tran owns Tippi Nails & Spa in Hoover, Alabama.
Oanh “Jenna” Tran is the owner of Tippi Nails & Spa in Hoover at 1550 Montgomery Highway (in the shopping center with Ellis Piano and Organ).
Q: Are you from Vietnam?
A: I’m from Vietnam, but I’ve been here for 15 years.
Q: What brought you to the United States?
A: My husband married me and brought me here. His family did something in the Vietnam War, and after that, they [the U.S. government] paid for any family that did something that helped an American soldier [to come to the U.S.]. His parents came here, and he followed his parents.
Q: Did you come straight to Alabama?
A: No, I stayed in Mississippi for five years, and then I moved here.
Q: What brought you to the Birmingham area?
A: I followed my husband here. He got a job here.
Q: When did you open this salon?
A: One and a half years ago.
Q: Had you been in this business before?
A: I have done nails for people before, but this is the first time I’ve owned a nail salon.
Q: What made you decide you wanted to open your own place?
A: I have an autistic child. He’s 5 years old now. But when I worked for other people, he went to day care, and every time he was a little bit sick and needed to stay home, I would have to stay home with him. Now since I own my own business, I can bring him here, and I can still work. I can keep him here a little bit and keep him here until my husband gets home. And I love to do nails. I love to design nails for women. They like fancy nails, and I do that for them.
Q: How is business going for you?
A: I got this business for a very good price because the former owner didn’t make it. When I came here, I figured out the problem of why they didn’t make it here because the previous owner had the name Galleria Nails. And people who live in this area, everyone thinks Galleria Nails is in the Galleria mall. They go straight to the mall. So when I took it over, I changed the name, and I changed the signs. I even changed the setup because the previous owner used the side door over there, and no one could see it. I moved the door so I can see people walking in and out, and people can see that we’re doing business in here, and it helped the business a lot. … Now, I’m making triple the income from when I first took over.
Q: Other than nails, what else do you do?
A: We do waxing, and we do lashes and brows.
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
A: I have a problem that I like to do a lot of things. I think I need to fix that. I do things constantly, and I never stop. I sew clothes. I can build things. My dad was a carpenter. He built things, and I saw when I grew up how he did things. I can buy old furniture, and I can make it nice, or I can build something new. I can also do upholstery. … But I’m going to stick with nails for making money, not my other things.
Q: Tell me about your family.
A: I have a daughter who is 17 years old. She helps me with the little boy at home when she gets out of school, and she got accepted into Vanderbilt University. She got a full ride.
Q: Where is she in school?
A: Spain Park. And we just bought a house right behind the salon. We can walk. When it gets slow and I have people here, I can go home and cook some food. And if they need me, I can be here in one minute. My little boy in August will go to Green Valley Elementary School.
Q: Explain about the name of your business.
A: Vietnamese people started getting into the country about 50 years ago. After the war, the people who first came here stayed in refugee camps. There was a group of people who tried to help Vietnamese people learn some skills and find a job. There is a lady — her name is Tippi [Hedren]. She was an actress, and she came there to try to help the people in the refugee camp learn some skills. They liked her nails, and that gave her an idea. She called her personal nail tech, and she came there to teach the Vietnamese women how to do nails and helped them to get their license and helped them to find a job. And now that’s why so many Vietnamese people do nails. And I want people to know that history, so I named the salon after her. I think she’s still around. She’s 95.
Q: Have you ever had any contact with her?
A: No, I thought about it, but to talk to her, we have to make an appointment, and it’s expensive just to talk to her. So I said no. But people say Tippi Hedren is the godmother of the Vietnamese nail industry. … When people come from a poor country come here after a war, they get a job and they work like crazy. We make money, and we send back to the country to build back the country after the war. The money from the nails have helped the country a lot.
Q: What percentage of your business is the nails versus the other things?
A: When I started this business, I just had myself. I didn’t have friends or family. Then slowly I hired more people to do nails, but now when I have more people, I started to do brows and waxing. But most people know us for our nails.
