Embodying Legitimacy: Immigration, Stratification, and Cultural Practices in Beauty Work

• In Event: 50220 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 21: Meaning, Legitimacy and Professions

Abstract

In the United States, immigration classifications—asylee, undocumented, and permanent legal resident—inform the embodied tactics that sustain social life, which is produced through the racist structures of immigration laws and occupational licensing practices. Using ethnographic data from three ethnic beauty salons in Chicago, Illinois, this article illuminates how immigration classifications intersect with occupational stratification to influence the ways Pakistani and Indian beauty workers navigate the informality attached to being a low-wage immigrant beauty worker. I identify two embodied processes through which immigrant women beauty workers enact distinct social positions to reclaim legitimacy via cultural representation. First, beauty workers seeking asylum and those without legal immigration documentation utilize certain styles of dress and specific bodily practices to articulate tradition and “culturally” authenticate themselves while providing beauty services. Second, workers who have been in the United States for a longer time or have permanent residency emphasize wearing a beauty vest, attending beauty events, and pursuing training as critical steps in becoming a “professional” beauty worker. These findings describe the role of embodiment in everyday struggles by showing how immigrant bodies that are imparted with meanings engage in non-normative practices (which the general American public often labels “immigrant cultural practices”) to claim authenticity and worth in their work.

Author

• Soulit Chacko, Boise State University