Nail Artists Preserving Chicano Culture in the Face of Gentrification

Abigail Tovar (left) and Lisset Velasquez (right)

Nail Artists Lisset Velasquez and Abigail Tovar started off as coworkers in a beauty salon. Freshly licensed from cosmetology school, Velasquez would shadow and train with Tovar. Work meant sitting beside each other and only exchanging a couple words throughout shifts. Until one day, Tovar approached Velasquez with a question. 

“She said, ‘Hey, have you ever thought of opening your own salon or your own place?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah I actually have’”, Velasquez said. “I just never knew when the time was right [to start a business] and I felt like speaking about it with Abigail then felt right.”

Their workplace friendship quickly led to the start of their own nail salon. They began planning a meeting right after Velasquez confirmed with Tovar. Every day since then, the two have been in Tovar’s kitchen, discussing contracts and figuring out names for their business.

“We wanted to do it right,” Tovar said. “Opening a business with somebody else is risky, especially since we knew each other but we didn’t truly know each other. We were very passionate about what we wanted to do, so we really wanted to go about it the right way.”

This involved two weeks of Tovar and Velasquez putting in notices, writing their own contracts, doing research, filing an LLC, choosing color schemes, and all other details. With that, Dope Culture was born in 2021. 

Tovar started doing freelance makeup and hair shortly after she received her license through cosmetology school. Afterward, a friend convinced her to work at Milk + Honey spa, where she was tested to try something new — nails. Eventually she decided to leave and was hired at another salon where she met Velasquez.

“I saw this other nail salon that did a lot of nail art and I was like ‘Oh you know let me just try it,’ and I fell in love,” Tovar said. “I loved painting and have always been in the art scene so I just fell in love with nail art.”

Dallasite, Velasquez followed in the footsteps of her mom, who was a cosmetologist. She remembers looking through her mom’s nail polish collection and watching her do hair. Throughout community college, Velasquez said, she found herself wanting to find a career where she could be more “creative.” 

“I didn’t know what to do and I wanted to get my nails done at the time, but I didn’t have the funds,” Velasquez said. “I had this friend who said, ‘Why don’t you just learn to do them yourself?’”

So she did, and scored her first job where Tovar was working. 

When creating Dope Culture, Tovar and Velasquez focused on embracing their similar styles and keeping their culture alive as Latinas. 

The gentrification going on at Chicano Park in the Austin neighborhood of East Cesar Chavez is one of the things that inspired them when creating their business. 

“[New residents] don’t want us in a space,” Velasquez said. “But you know what? We’re going to take up space no matter what. So here we are. That's why we named it Dope Culture — to take up space.”

As an Austinite, Tovar grew up visiting her grandma’s house just down the road from Chicano Park. 

“She has a one-story Barbie-looking house with the stairs coming down the hill,” Tovar said. “Very old fashioned.”

But now, a modern style home sits next door to her grandmother’s house. Tovar says the scenery and “family-oriented” community has changed ever since the city began growing more. 

“People are losing their homes, they’re getting bought out, they can’t afford taxes, it’s just sad,” Tovar said. “I know people who have lost their homes because of this and because they don’t feel comfortable there anymore.

Although Tovar and Velasquez’s nail art specialty is in incorporating Chicano and Hispanic elements, they dabble in a little of everything. They both hope to ultimately deliver creativity in a client’s final design. 

“Stay true to yourself, love yourself and remember where you come from,” Velasquez said.