Барбер в школьном автобусе: как Хектор Тринидадо открыл мобильную парикмахерскую у USC

- Click here to listen to this article - Share via See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred - After the pandemic shuttered his Inglewood barbershop job, Hector Trinidad reinvented himself, converting a yellow school bus into a curbside barbershop parked just outside USC. - Four days a week, students and locals line up for $35 to $40 cuts at his popular shop. When the pandemic nearly ended his hair-cutting career, Hector Trinidad didn’t give up. He bought a school bus. Better known as “Hector the Barber,” Trinidad, 50, now makes his living parking his barbershop on wheels at Hoover and 31st streets, adjacent to USC. “The only thing I stress about is finding parking,” he said of his mobile business. He parks his bus Monday through Thursdays alongside USC, where students and others come aboard for a haircut that costs $35 to $40. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the Inglewood barbershop where he worked. While many barbers began working from home or their backyards , Hector bought the bus and redesigned it into a mobile barbershop. He decided business would be good near the pedestrian heavy streets across from the shops at USC Village. The barber chair sits in the middle of the bus, with windows all around and extra seating at the back. The bus has a gas generator so clients can enjoy air conditioning on hot days, but there is no water for a shampoo. Trinidad said he thrives among his youthful customers. “The Bible says that the youth is the foundation... They will be the next generation to help us,” he said. He pointed to the sign at the front of his bus that reads, “Your driver is: the ambition to excel.” Trinidad tells students to never stop trying to improve. He watches them grow and eventually graduate. “Every year, I get a lot of freshmen. They grow up. They send their little brothers, then they become seniors,” he said. “For me, graduation is very important. It’s emotional to see my freshmen become seniors and graduate.” Trinidad gives free haircuts to all of the students who have been with him since they were freshmen. 1. A variety of clippers. 2. Tools of the trade. 3. A bicyclist is framed in the back window of a converted school bus. Growing up a few blocks from campus, Trinidad aspired to be a veterinarian as a child. “I wanted to go to UC Davis for veterinary school, and my dad, with his tough love, said, ‘I don’t want you to be far. Stay around here.’” Trinidad began cutting hair in high school at age 16. “I decided to cut my own hair randomly. My friends asked me ‘who’s cutting your hair’ and I said ‘me!’” Trinidad worked at FedEx and considered starting his business in a used FedEx truck. “But this one stood out — it’s yellow, I’m parked by USC, a school, and it felt right,” he said. 1. Hector Trinidad cuts Brian Codington’s hair. For a couple of years, Trinidad juggled barber college, work at FedEx and missionary work through his L.A. church, Iglesia De Jesucristo. “I had a lot on my plate those two years,” he said. Trinidad, who is of El Salvadorian descent, traveled to the country of his roots as well as Guatemala, Nicaragua,Mexico and Panama. “We visited local villages, preached the word, sent in clothes for the needy, toys for the children.” He cut hair at Joe’s Barber Shop in Inglewood when not traveling. “I’ve talked to many people, and they said that Hector is the best around,” Atharv Patil, a first-year USC computer science master’s student, said. “It would be awesome if Hector set up in my dorm.” Trinidad also drives to homes and events when invited — he recently went to a wedding and gave haircuts to the groom and his friends. He wants to set up shop in a USC dorm to bring even more convenience to students and eventually wants to take his bus to a corporate office space. “I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be better,” he said. He pointed to his sign: “Your driver is: the ambition to excel.”