What is the importance of the nail salon where Rose works in the novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous?

The nail salon where Rose works represents the attempt to assimilate within a new and strange culture. While observing his mother at the salon, the narrator observes how often Rose is taken aback by her customers' worries, preoccupations, and versions of reality completely other than her own. He also notes the toll the salon work takes on his mother's body, a physiological sign of the difficulty to merge with and become a part of a new societal structure.