It seems like only yesterday that I arrived in the United States, fresh-faced, nervous, and excited—but without two words of English. Fortunately, I had the number of a friend from Paris named Ricardo Gomez who had come to the D.C. area a year earlier. Ricardo was one of those super-suave hairdressers who'd landed in America and become an instant sensation with the D.C. crowd. Ricardo invited me to the Georgetown Salon where he worked. I was in awe. I looked around at the Ame