“It doesn’t matter what you wear because you look good”: There are many Dominican-owned salons and barbershops in Boston

This type of work is part of owning a salon and is as tiring as it is fulfilling. It was also her dream since she was a child.

“For men, it’s about becoming a good baseball player. That’s the dream,” she said. For some Dominican girls, “we think, ‘Oh, we’re going to open our salon.'”

Rivera’s shop is one of many hair salons and barbershops throughout Boston owned by the city’s growing Dominican population. It is difficult to determine how many of these companies are specifically Dominican-owned because city and state authorities do not track such information. But if you walk through many of Boston’s neighborhoods, you’ll notice that they have become an integral part of the city’s fabric.

The salons and barbershops that cut all types of hair, from kinky to straight, have become popular destinations for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Along Washington Street, which stretches across Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, you might come across nearly 15 Dominican salons, Rivera said, bustling with customers, stylists styling hair with curlers and barbers making precise cuts under bright lights deliver, teeming.

“When you get your nails done and your hair done, it doesn’t matter what you wear because you look good,” said Leodayls Flores, who owns two D’Laly’s Beauty Salons in Roxbury and Dorchester.

In the Dominican Republic, hair is simply part of the culture, Rivera explained. Therefore, for those making their way to the United States, opening a barbershop or salon seems natural. For centuries, Dominicans have left their homeland in search of better economic opportunities in the United States. According to data from Boston Indicators, the research arm of the Boston Foundation, Dominicans make up nearly a quarter of the city’s Latino population, just behind Puerto Ricans.

When migrants arrived in the United States, they used their skills as a means of economic survival, said Magalis Troncoso Lama, executive director of the Dominican Development Center.

“Sometimes it’s really difficult to start building economic power in this country if you don’t speak the language, if you don’t come here with a master’s degree or higher education,” Troncoso Lama said.

For some, those skills included cutting hair.

Raudy Gonzalez started out as a hairdresser, giving free haircuts as a hobby. But when people started paying him, he decided to turn his passion into a career. In 2007, he took over Los Primos Barbershop on Meridian Street in East Boston.

One afternoon his shop was bustling with activity. The barbers delivered precisely sculpted beards and crisp poses, and brushed excess hair onto capes emblazoned with the letters “RD,” a nod to the place where most of them come from: La Republica Dominican Republic.

When the business first opened in 2004, Dominican barbershops were a rarity in East Boston, Gonzalez said. Today they are scattered between Salvadoran pupuserias and Colombian panaderias and dot most main streets.

Across the United States, the popularity of these salons, which have stayed ahead of hair trends, has spread like “a fever,” he said.

“Dominicans are born with it,” he chuckled, talking about his nationality’s hairstyling fame.

What sets Leodayls Flores Dominican hair salons apart from the rest is their blow drying technique. Over the years, as chemical relaxers fell out of fashion and were replaced by gentler keratin treatments, clients clung to their Dominican blowouts, which leave hair silky, shiny and smooth.

“We are specialists in blow-drying all hair types,” Flores said, noting that her clients are largely of African-American and Latino descent.

Flores started doing hair when she was 13 in the Dominican Republic, where she said it was common for people to get their hair done weekly.

Flores said she immigrated to the United States when she was 18 and came without her family. In order to open her salons, she had to learn English and get a new cosmetology license while raising four children.

Dominican salon and hair salon owners across the city often have to overcome many hurdles to get their businesses off the ground, something that was particularly evident to City Councilor Julia Mejia when the pandemic hit.

With no information available on how this high-touch industry might reopen post-pandemic, Mejia helped launch an initiative to train companies on how to operate under COVID guidelines.

Mejia said the city has also helped hair salon owners formalize their businesses and understand the importance of documenting revenue and digitization in an industry that often relies on cash.

“This work really opened the door and relationship with this particular industry,” Mejia said.

She said she has continued to work closely with these businesses and consulted with owners on policymaking. Not only do they inform them about the challenges families face, she said, but they also serve as hubs for disseminating information.

Take Gloria Rivera, for example, who considers her Allston hair salon “more community than salon.”

She said that through her work at Gloria’s Beauty Center, she helps other stylists overcome hurdles such as obtaining a cosmetology license and setting up 401(k)s; Many stylists work for 30 years and have no savings for retirement, she said.

“They don’t know exactly what the options are [that] They have here,” she added.

In her salon, she keeps applications for Boys and Girls Club programs to distribute to high school students. Chatting while doing their hair, she said she often advises clients on finding accommodation or the right English courses.

Sometimes it’s easier to go to her than to a social worker, she said.

“You believe in me because you see me and you know me every time,” Rivera said.

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Helena Getahun-Hawkins can be reached at [email protected].