Shortly before 5 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Josie Reynaga welcomes three generations of the Castaneda family into her Pueblos Unidos hair salon in Compton, where half a dozen stylists await the groggy clients with curling irons and cans of Aqua Net at the ready.
A dozen mothers and daughters, sisters, cousins and in-laws file in to get their hair done for Irene Castaneda's quinceanera, her elaborate 15th birthday party. And Reynaga knows most of them by name.
Among the first to be seated in a glow of fluorescent light is 85-year-old matriarch Maria Domitila Lopez, whose stockings sag under the weight of early morning. Her thinning locks present a hairdresser's challenge. Martina Castaneda, 44, sits next to her mother dispatching advice and flipping through magazines for inspiration. As the smell of sweet bread wafts in from the panaderia nearby and ranchera music drowns out the noise of blow dryers, the sleepy teenage star of the show is prodded into a stylist's chair.
Over the next three hours, hair is teased and curled, pinned into buns and sprayed into ringlets. Reynaga herself studs the youngest ones' tresses with plastic jewels that twinkle like pink and purple stars. Most of the women admire themselves in the mirror through an aerosol haze. But one cousin pulls apart her new hairdo, muttering, "I look like my mom."
Finally, a tiara is set atop Irene Castaneda's coif and her braces-filled grin beams unfettered joy.
"A quinceanera is very big, very sacred," Reynaga said. "The most important thing is that the 15-year-old girl leaves here happy and feeling like a princess."
This one does.
But for Reynaga, the day is just beginning. As the party crowd departs, the staff throws open the doors to the rest of the customers.
Pueblos Unidos has been a fixture in the Latino community of Compton for nearly a quarter of a century, a kind of town square where men and women take their children for haircuts on Saturday mornings and run into their neighbors. For wedding, baptism or quinceanera groups willing to make a down payment, Reynaga will open before dawn. By 8 a.m., the phone is ringing with requests for same-day appointments, although Reynaga notes that many clients show up late.
A flat top or fade cut, the most popular styles for boys and young men, costs just $7, and the shop is trouble-free in a city that has known its share of trouble on the street.
