The Undocumented Migrant Behind The Brazilian

Artwork by Sandrine Boulet

The BBC has a truly hair-raising migration story: Jocely Padilha came to the United States from Brazil in 1982. She overstayed a tourist visa (it appears, the journalism is fuzzy on the interesting stuff), and ended up doing nails to make ends meet.

Jocely has six sisters. And they all ended up making their way to NYC too. (How? Did they end up regularizing their status? I wish the BBC had explained the immigration law angle! Sigh.) Eventually the sisters opened the J Sisters salon in Manhattan.

Do you know what the J Sisters salon is famous for? The Brazilian. As in the extreme wax treatment. It was the Padilha sister named Janea who invented the treatment in the 70s then introduced it to the US in the 90s.

I have been sitting on this story for a few days trying to come up with a good ending to this post. I think I’m going to go choose-your-own-adventure style. Pick one of the following:

• Um, thanks?
• Seems like a missed opportunity for anti-immigrant rhetoric. Why focus on criminal aliens when you could talk about aliens bringing their painful foreign salon services? They’d capture more female votes.
• What an immigrant success story! I look forward to Laura Malin’s forthcoming book about the Padilha sisters – Wax and the City. Maybe it’ll have more of the immigration details.

-KitJ