When two women sit hand in hand to provide and receive an intimate body service, a fragile sense of solidarity can form across the table. But it generally gives way to the stronger divisions of race, class and immigration status that each brings to the encounter. Physical closeness in service work does not by itself build community between unequal people.
One identical service can carry very different meanings depending on who buys it. For middle-class white women a manicure can mean pampering. For working-class Black women it can be artistic self-expression. For others it is simply cheap, mass-consumed body care, so the work a provider must do shifts with the customer.
A single immigrant group can come to dominate one service trade until that trade seems to belong to them. Nail salons in the United States are increasingly owned and run by Asian immigrants, and by Korean women in particular. That pattern raises the question of why particular newcomers end up concentrated in particular kinds of work.