Two women, virtual strangers, sit hand-in-hand across a narrow table, both intent on the same thing - achieving the perfect manicure. Encounters like this occur thousands of times across the United States in nail salons increasingly owned and operated by Asian immigrants. This study looks closely for the first time at these intimate encounters, focusing on New York City, where such nail salons have become ubiquitous. Drawing from rich and compelling interviews, Miliann Kang takes us inside the nail industry, asking such questions as: Why have nail salons become so popular? Why do so many Asian women, and Korean women in particular, provide these services? Kang discovers multiple motivations for the manicure - from the pampering of white middle class women to the artistic self-expression of working class African American women to the mass consumption of body-related services. Contrary to notions of beauty service establishments as spaces for building community among women, "The Managed Hand" finds that while tentative and fragile solidarities can emerge across the manicure table, they generally give way to even more powerful divisions of race, class, and immigration.

In Second-Generation Korean Experiences in the United States and Canada, Pyong Gap Min and Samuel Noh have compiled a comprehensive examination of 1.5- and second-generation Korean experiences in the United States and Canada. As the chapters demonstrate, comparing younger-generation Koreans with first-generation immigrants highlights generational changes in many areas of life. The contributors discuss socioeconomic attainments, self-employment rates and business patterns, marital patterns, participation in electoral politics, ethnic insularity among Korean Protestants, the relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health, the role of ethnic identity as stress moderator, and responses to racial marginalization. Using both quantitative and qualitative data sources, this collection is unique in its examination of several different aspects of second-generation Korean experiences in the United States and Canada. An indispensable source for those scholars and students researching Korean Americans or Korean Canadians, the volume provides insight for students and scholars of minorities, migration, ethnicity and race, and identity formation.

Two women, virtual strangers, sit hand-in-hand across a narrow table, both intent on the same thing - achieving the perfect manicure. Encounters like this occur thousands of times across the United States in nail salons increasingly owned and operated by Asian immigrants. This study looks closely for the first time at these intimate encounters, focusing on New York City, where such nail salons have become ubiquitous. Drawing from rich and compelling interviews, Miliann Kang takes us inside the nail industry, asking such questions as: Why have nail salons become so popular? Why do so many Asian women, and Korean women in particular, provide these services? Kang discovers multiple motivations for the manicure-from the pampering of white middle class women to the artistic self-expression of working class African American women to the mass consumption of body-related services. Contrary to notions of beauty service establishments as spaces for building community among women, "The Managed Hand" finds that while tentative and fragile solidarities can emerge across the manicure table, they generally give way to even more powerful divisions of race, class, and immigration.