Ho Chi Minh City – When Nguyen Phuoc Loc first began dabbling in Chicano Culture eight years ago, that’s because he liked the way loose clothes offset his big head.
Today he thinks himself through the Chicano. The 30-year-old Vietnamese barber has never been to the US. However, he filled his life and worked with respect for Mexican-American identity and culture.
Behind the barber shop he manages features murals from Wilgen de Guadalupe, cactus plants and Mexican flags. The sneakers are hanging from barbed wire with strings and hanging over two bikes.
The head of Vietnamese barber Nguyen Phuoc Loc is covered in tattoos. On the left is the family-friendly Spanish, Familia.
Even his shaved head is covered in the black letters of Gothic, long popular in Chicano culture: family, loyalty, ink in his crown – the numerous six – signifies his status as the sixth member of a small but visible community.
“Initially, I was copying older guys, their style and everything,” Locke said.
Fashion aside, culture gives rock a sense of belonging and motivates him to work hard with his skills. He has begun watching movies that have soaked up Chicano Culture, such as “American Me” and “Blood in Blood Out,” and has read about the online movement using limited English and translation apps. He also began learning Spanish at Duolingo, but said that the language was more difficult.
“If someone comes in from LA, I’ll ask everything I can about Chicano culture,” he said. “It’s like they’re tailored to the exact frequency I did.”
Once a mild name for Mexican-Americans, the term “chicano” was reclaimed as a political identity in the 1960s and emerged from the fight for civil rights in the Southwest of the United States.
Since then, symbols of Chicano identity, such as oversized streetwear, elaborate tattoos and lowrider cars, have permeated mainstream culture. The subculture influenced by Chicano images originated in other parts of Asia, including Thailand, the Philippines, and particularly Japan.
Armando Rendon, a member of the National Mexican-American Anti-Ethnic Committee, held a chart showing the important complaints that Mexican-Americans are “a higher proportion, very unbalanced with the total US population and very unbalanced with the total US population” in Vietnam at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
(Bettmann Archive)
Within conservative Asian culture, the adventurous clothing and accessories of Chicano culture are a major part of its appeal, says UC Merced professor Ignacio Lopez Carbo, who studied the spread of Japan’s lowrider culture.
“It’s a way of opposing traditional social norms,” he said. “They see Chicano culture, this rebellion, this rebellion, this resilience, and independence, and it’s a way to express themselves, find their identity, and create a community.”
Berta Delgado Mergoza, a Spanish writer who studied Chicano literature written by Vietnam War veterans, says Chicano soldiers who identified a particular part of Vietnamese culture there, protested the racial inequality of Chicano activists drafted at home.
“When Mexican-American soldiers arrived in Vietnam, they saw people who looked similar in their facial features, their clothes, even their hats. They were poor and worked in the fields. They also had a great sense of community and, more importantly, they were also fighting for a life with American imperialism,” she said.
Nguyen Phuoc Thien, who drinks tea, posses on her bike at a Chicano-themed barber shop where she works in Ho Chi Minh city.
(Chris Torin / For the Era)
Vietnam’s own Chicano “movement” began 10 years ago, when Nguyen Huynh Thanh Liem opened a barber shop dedicated to Chicano Culture in Ho Chi Minh City. The 38-year-old now operates around 20 barber shops nationwide, including three Chicano-style shops, and uses barber shops such as Loc as trains.
Tran Quoc Viet, a 37-year-old used car salesman, became an authorized customer of Liem’s barbershop soon after its first opening in 2015. At the time, he was intrigued by a rare aesthetic. He never adopted baggy clothes or tattoo styles, but he was impressed by how the barber pulled it apart.
“At the time, it might be called rebellious,” he said. “It was bold and edgy about it, so I was interested.”
Apprentice at Bet Monster Hood Salon in Ho Chi Minh City tattoos customers.
Many Vietnamese fascinated by the Chicano culture, their initial acclaim is attributed to the bright colours and bold contrasts displayed in his signature shop.
The unconventional talent of barbershops gave them a unique charm, and in recent years social media has helped the community boost their profiles and gain a larger audience beyond Vietnam. Liem has over 680,000 followers on Tiktok. There I post about Chicanos in Vietnam. Loc has 1.2 million Tiktok followers. His most popular videos each have around 30 million views.
But that attention has not all been positive, especially among older generations of Vietnamese people who tend to associate tattoos with gangs and violence.
“In Vietnam, when people see something new or unfamiliar, they are not always welcomed, especially from another culture,” said Nu Nguyen Van Tao, a 35-year-old tattoo artist who works at another store in Liem. “People often laugh at social media, laugh at us, and laugh at us, “You’re Vietnamese, why are you not Vietnamese? Why do you have to be that way?”
Thao began exploring Chicano-style tattoos with Liem when they met 10 years ago. At the time, their reference frames came mostly from online images. As they delve into Chicano culture, Thao discovers that many other aspects resonate with him, including emphasis on family, resilience and respect.
“People often ask me why I chose this culture, but the truth is, I didn’t choose it. I discovered it. “People come here, hang out, ink, support our work. They turned my life around.”
Stigma associated with Vietnamese tattoos and streetwear has played a role in keeping the core community small. Although information about Chicano culture is on the rise, Thao said that those who are immovable enough to endure stare and learn about fundamental values. He speculated that such social scrutiny put excessive pressure on women who explored the Chicano community and decided not to stay.
“In fact, there are a lot of people who like culture. They really know what to do, but they hesitate,” he said. “They are scared to be stared at, judged, spoken, attacked. They can’t handle criticism, so they give up.”
Tattoo artist Nguyen Van Thao will pos for a portrait at Viet Monster Hood.
Around ten dedicated members of the community and their families often come and go, work and socialise at Beto Monster Hood, Riem’s flagship salon.
Beto Chicano is also wary of attracting the wrong types of followers, and may be pursuing a different kind of lifestyle. Despite their intense appearances, many of the barbers at Riem’s shops are gently spoken and humble and rejected recognition of violence and crime. They say they want to perpetuate cultural appreciation rather than spending.
“We’re just inheriting this culture from afar, and in doing so we choose to take over the beautiful parts,” Thao said. “We believe we can succeed like this, so when people see this culture, they make sure that it’s leading to real success. And the people who follow it are decent people and we don’t have to be a gangster to be considered a true Chicano.”
The Vietnamese Chicano “movement” began 10 years ago, when Nguyen Huynh Thanh Liem opened a barber shop dedicated to Chicano Culture in Ho Chi Minh City. The 38-year-old now operates around 20 barber shops nationwide, including three Chicano-style shops.
When tattoo artist Michael Van, 25, worked for Thao two years ago from Munich, Germany, his only idea of Chicano culture was the superficial notion that it was related to gangs. But his time at Beto Monster Hood changed that. Now he likes to quote quotes from “Blood in Blood Out,” surrounded by salon walls.
“I love it because it means you don’t have to be in America to accept it,” he said.
Learning from Thao has helped Phan to follow social media and grow his business, but his clients are still mostly foreign. He has learned that Chicano and Vietnamese culture have many similarities, including family prioritization, but he believes that Vietnamese people, including relatives, may take some time for them to arrive.
Nguyen Thi Bich, 60, was initially stepping into Beto’s Monster Hood because people with tattoos were taught to be dangerous. However, she relaxed to see how cheerful the barber was, teasing her seven-year-old grandson.
“When we went to other barber shops where people were in a bad mood, my little grandson was scared and didn’t want to go back,” she said. “Now I’m around people with tattoos and I get to know them. I’ve noticed that there are all kinds of people everywhere.”
She’s still new to Chikano’s meaning, but she loves the environment with her Vietnamese hood, where the decals are ubiquitous, “Vietnamese gangs.”
“This shop feels like one of the places where young people go to rap,” she said. “I’ve been watching rap on TV recently and I’m really enjoying it.”
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