For Salon Owner, It's All About Roots - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

A Virginia Businesswoman Helps Other Hispanic Hairstylists Gain Confidence and Experience

By Dagny Salas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Corina Cornejo never forgets how she got her start: as a "shampoo girl" in a beauty salon in Arlington. In the mid-1980s, the owner of the salon put the Salvadoran immigrant in charge of washing hair and sweeping clippings while she studied for her cosmetology license. A few years later, Cornejo and her sister saved enough to open their own salon.

Now Cornejo is a mentor to stylists throughout Northern Virginia's Hispanic community. Her salon in Manassas and her sister's in Arlington, where Cornejo worked before selling her share to her sister, have served as training grounds for several aspiring salon owners to gain entrepreneurial confidence and experience before branching out on their own. "We have to share what we know," Cornejo said in Spanish. "God puts people that help you in your life. Now I can give it others."

With more than 500 foreign-born, self-reported Hispanic hairdressers in Virginia, mostly concentrated in Northern Virginia, salons are a popular choice in the immigrant-heavy region for newcomers who want to avoid low-paying, day-labor jobs in favor of a career. Hair salons require little overhead, have relatively fewer bureaucratic hurdles than some other businesses and tap into skills that many immigrants cultivated in their home countries.

Cornejo opened the salon, expanded and hired other immigrants who later took off on their own, a path not unlike that followed by Korean and Vietnamese nail salon workers and other new arrivals. Her shops helped train Ignacio Rodriguez, who operates in Alexandria; Yesenia Galdamez, who took over one of Cornejo's salons in Warrenton; and others whose intertwined histories demonstrate how many immigrants settle and prosper.

Cornejo's deep ties in the local community have paid off during the economic downturn. Although her annual revenue dipped from a high of about $200,000 in the late 1990s and early 2000s to $100,000 last year, Cornejo said she has not had to cut hours or employees. Her Manassas shop employs six stylists and an assistant manager.

But the economy has affected how often patrons frequent the shop. "You can say 'I don't have the money, I'll wait another week,' " but she expects customers to return as the economy improves. Freddy Ventura, a longtime Manassas business owner, remembers when Cornejo opened her Manassas salon in the early 1990s. There weren't many Spanish-speaking businesses in the area. Corina's Hair Design was a hit.

"That place was packed. I never went because of the long line," Ventura said. "But everyone knew the name of the business."

The Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce counts 400 businesses as members in the D.C. region, said Jacqueline Krick, vice president of the Northern Virginia regional office. The chamber opened its first office in Northern Virginia in January and a second last week in Arlington. Cornejo's client list has been built largely on word of mouth. Many of her future employees found her that way too.

In the early 1990s, Rodriguez walked into a well-known salon in the Culmore area of Fairfax County. The salon where Rodriguez had been working had just closed. He struck up a conversation with a stylist who knew Cornejo and her sister and learned that they had an open chair in their Arlington shop. Once he passed the in-person test, he was hired. When Cornejo opened the second salon in Manassas, Rodriguez followed her there.

During an interview he gave in Spanish, Rodriguez credits his time working for Cornejo as instrumental in opening his own salon.

"A lot of people come here without papers and have to clean bathrooms, but I got to work in my chosen profession," said Rodriguez, whose father had owned a barbershop in Mexico. Rodriguez picked grapes and strawberries in California when he first emigrated to the United States in the 1980s. "You open with a vision of what you'll do and you're excited about having your own business."

Other shop owners say that Cornejo gave them a chance when they didn't have much else. After losing two houses to foreclosure in 2006, Galdamez was in no position to open a business when Cornejo approached her last year about taking over her Warrenton shop where Galdamez worked. She had already tried running a house-cleaning service in Arlington, a lunch-truck serving pupusas along Route 1 in Woodbridge, and a hair salon in Herndon. But Cornejo told Galdamez that she believed in her and would support her.

"I always said to myself 'I just need one more opportunity,' " Galdamez said in Spanish. "When I started, I said: 'This is mine; this is what I want to do. I won't leave this.' " She said she still regularly calls Cornejo with questions about treatments, prices, how to treat a particular client.

After nearly two decades, Cornejo's reputation remains strong. A few weeks ago, Doris Morales burst into Cornejo's Manassas shop. She was on a mission to find the salon a friend had recommended for her granddaughter. Was this the right place? The granddaughter was guided to a stylist's chair as Morales sat to relax.

A ramp agent at Dulles International Airport, Morales sees what Cornejo has done for herself -- and for others -- as setting the kind of example the Hispanic community needs.

"A woman who has her own business has to want to fight to come out ahead," Morales said. "She gives opportunities to people who want to learn. That's how the community grows."