“The first thing I always ask someone, the very first, is what their name is,” says Priscilla Moreno Arias, as she runs her fingers slowly through my hair. “That’s very important.”
It’s a warm Friday afternoon and I’m in the Imagen Beauty Salon, whose bright red walls create their own little universe that feels very separate from busy Mission Street, though it is just a few steps away.
Next to me, a woman named Olga – or Olgita, as they call her – is lounging cheerfully, enjoying her salon experience. We all speak in Spanish, though Priscilla tells me that one of the stylists speaks English, Spanish, and Chinese.
“How many years have you been coming here?” I ask Olgita.
“Ooooh! Many!” she answers, laughing.
“Ten already, at least,” adds her stylist Francesco.
She’s here to get her highlights done, and to relax. She closes her eyes contentedly while Francesco covers different bits of her hair in foil. Across the room, another foiled-up woman reclines happily and waits for her stylist to add color.
It’s hard not to relax in the salon. The music – which ranges from “A Whole New World” from the Little Mermaid to “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League to salsa – is trance-inducing. And the stylists don’t seem to be in any big hurry, either. Spritzes and snips are interspersed between chatter and questions. Two of Priscilla’s favorite topics right now: El Chapo’s escape, and Donald Trump’s recent comments.
For those behind the news, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is an infamous Mexican Drug lord who just escaped prison (for the second time) by ducking into his cell’s shower and disappearing into a mile-long tunnel. As for the Donald, he used his presidential bid announcement speech to say, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
“I believe that everyone can think what they want, but it’s damaging,” says Priscilla, who is from Colonia del Valle in Mexico City, of Trump’s outburst. “There are Latino artists, like Selena Gomez, and Jennifer Lopez, and they’re not delinquents. They’re very hardworking.”
“Trump is trying to make a law, but he’s not even president,” she adds. “That’s like if I tried to vote, but I’m not a citizen! It would be a felony, they would put me in jail!”
Her scissors stop abruptly when I tell her that I had a dream last night involving El Chapo.
“What happened? Was he in San Francisco? Maybe it’s a sign!” she says, looking at me intently through the mirror.
After I tell her about my dream, however, she relaxes. It’s highly unlikely, she insists, that he would come here, because most of his business is in Mexico.
Her family in Mexico, she tells me, thinks that he escaped because they weren’t treating him well enough.
Priscilla prides herself on her framed cosmetology license, which stands out on the bright red wall. She tells me it took her three years of cosmetology school, and a final exam that took from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to get her California license.
“Who cut your hair last time?” she asks me.
“Some guy in Seattle,” I answer.
“Did he have a license? It’s very important that you see they have a license, so you know that they’re a professional.”
I’m also realizing that, apart from journalists and police officers, hair stylists are probably some of the the most experienced interviewers. “Communication with the client is the most important part,” Priscilla tells me, before asking me all about my life and telling me how very interesting I am.
Then, before I know it, some orange-smelling lotion snaps me out of my trance. Priscilla’s work is done, and she is ready to send me on my way.
“Our conversation is finished, and I hope that we’ll be great friends,” she says. “Come back again, as a client and not an interviewer!”