Chatto Wright traveled thousands of miles across continents and oceans to find a home in Chicago. Then she crossed one of the city’s great divides and opened a beauty shop on Oak Street. “Sometimes we all need to know how fortunate we are,” says Chatto, who’s known almost exclusively by her first name. “It’s also that way with me.”
She settled in Chicago, determined to make her way by cutting hair. Why Chicago? “Because my friends in Minnesota advised me that it was either here or New York City, and New York City was too rough and big for a single woman in America.” Why cutting hair? “Because I was good at it, and people will always want to have their hair cut.”
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“I had to learn so much about race. In my country there’s much more integration. But in this country it’s different. On the train white people sit by white people and blacks sit by blacks. In this country some of the white people are scared. They see you in the elevator and they grab for their purse. They don’t even think.”
She spent the rest of her $2,000 hooking up utilities. A neighbor who did carpentry on the side offered to help with renovations, leaving her with one big problem: “Where would I live? I had spent all of my savings on the shop. I thought, ‘Chatto, either you can forget the shop or you can sleep in the shop.’ I decided to sleep in the shop.
“A black shop is different than a white shop. It has a different style. People come and stay and talk. It’s very family. They tease me. I liked to play classical music–that’s the music I love–and they’d say, ‘Oh my God, I’m so bored. Can I change the music?’ One guy named Claude would come into the shop and say, ‘Chatto, what’s happening, my lady? Can I borrow your clippers and shave my head?’ He’s not thinking that this is a business and I have to pay my rent. But how can I say no? So I say, ‘Sure, why not?’ He started coming in all the time. ‘Hey, Chatto, my girl,’ and he’d shave his head. Then he’d say, ‘Hey, man, I owe you big time.’”
In the last few years her business–one of the few integrated beauty parlors in town–has steadily grown. She has her own Web site–www.chatto.com–featuring testimonials from customers, white as well as black. Eventually she developed her own line of cosmetics, skin-care products, and shampoos, and sales grew so big that she had to rent another room. On October 19 she’ll have a party there to celebrate the opening of her new shop. “America really is a land of opportunity,” she says, “but it’s not easy. I still remember living in the shop, showering at that lady’s apartment, and eating bananas and peanuts.”
