Profiles

For high school Italian teacher Natalie Del Percio, the language of her ancestors is a bridge that has connected her to her heritage as well as her family throughout the generations and around the world. A dual citizen of Italy and the United States, Del Percio has roots that extend across several regions. Her mother’s family comes from Mazzano Romano, near Rome, and San Giovanni in Fiore, Calabria, while her father’s family is from Volturara Irpina in Campania. Both sides of her family settled in Melrose Park. There, Del Percio’s grandfather opened a plumbing business that her father later took …

When he was about 10 years old, Lorenzo Fiorentino listened to his uncle Bernardo describe his service in the Italian Army during World War II with pride, but never glory. Those conversations planted the seed that inspired Fiorentino to join the U.S. Army, and later morphed into an unbridled desire to recognize the contribution and sacrifices of his fellow veterans. Fiorentino is the driving force behind the creation of Chicagoland Veterans Campus (CVC) located at 39 Army Trail Boulevard in a 100-year-old former school building owned by St. Paul Lutheran Church. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the CVC is the result of …

When Mary Ann Pedersen first joined the Highwood Bocce Club, she had no aspirations to be in leadership. “I wasn’t thinking in that direction,” Pedersen says. It was just before the COVID-19 pandemic and she was one of several women who took part in Sunday Funday, an informal, non-competitive experience for women who wanted to learn how to play bocce. Pedersen and her husband had joined in part because they had the time now that their kids were away at college. “I’m 100 percent Italian and an Italian speaker and I figured it could be a way to practice my …

In the firmament of Canadian theater, few luminaries shine as brightly as Antoni Cimolino. A mainstay at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, for nearly four decades, Cimolino enjoys a north-of-the-border acclaim akin to that of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Joining the renowned festival in 1988, he worked his way up from actor and general director to executive director and general manager before ascending to the post of artistic director in 2013. Since then, he has overseen the production of 145 plays, directing 20 of them, while shepherding the festival through a remarkable transformation. In his first season as artistic …

Having lived a sheltered life in the serenity of Veneto and the bustle of Chicago, Natale Cusinato was thrown into the teeth of battle as a member of the U.S. Army’s famed Americal Division during World War II. Natale Cusinato was born in Chicago in April 1917, the son of Italian immigrants seeking opportunity in America. However, the promise of the American Dream proved difficult to sustain. Struggling with language, cultural barriers and economic hardship, his family eventually returned to Cittadella, a medieval walled city in the province of Padua, about 40 miles west of Venice. There, they lived as …

Fr. Richard Fragomeni, the rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, has been known for weaving in stories about his mother and father into his homilies and using Italian traditions during Mass, but one thing he is most passionate about is the gift of music in Mass. With the recent renovation of the Shrine, located in Chicago’s Taylor Street Little Italy, one of Fr. Fragomeni’s main goals was to uphold and enhance the church’s acoustics to celebrate music in the highest regard. He is a gifted singer and piano player; something his mother, Mary, instilled in him since …

Now the principal of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral School in Chicago, Anna Cirilli owes her desire to pursue a career in school leadership to the overcrowding in Chicago public schools. Cirilli worked as a teacher for kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades at Marcus Garvey Elementary School from 2000 to 2012. Her last year there, she taught a class of 38 students with no assistance. “It was then that I realized I wanted to make a bigger impact by moving into school leadership,” she explains. “I believed that even the most dedicated teacher could only do so much when faced …

Maria SS. della Croce di Triggiano is going all out for the 100th anniversary of its festa with a series of celebrations this fall. Society president Rocco Scavo says the celebration will be expanded to accommodate the special anniversary with around 80 guests flying in from Triggiano, Bari, where the members trace their roots. Scavo was born in Triggiano, a town of around 26,000 people in the Puglia region of southern Italy who embrace the Blessed Mother as their patroness. He often returns for the festa, a three-day affair each September that draws tens of thousands of people. While addressing …

Proud of the Italian ancestry she inherited from her mother’s side of the family, Caitlin Clark has had a transformative impact on women’s basketball as she heads into only her second season in the WNBA. The list of professional athletes who have elevated their sports to the next level is a short one. There are those who broke longstanding records and those who earned “G.O.A.T.” (Greatest of All Time) status in some aspect of their game: Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Mario Andretti and Joe DiMaggio being prime examples. For a rare few, their names have become synonymous with the sport …

Jennifer Adriana LaDelfa has been charged with organizing The Italian Heritage & Culture Committee of New York is commemorating its 50th anniversary, and Jennifer Adriana LaDelfa is chairing the celebration. Since its inception 50 years ago, the Italian Heritage & Culture Committee of New York (IHCC-NY) has endeavored to promote, present and preserve Italian and Italian-American culture. The organization — which serves the Tri-State area centered on New York City encompassing parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — has done so by hosting, coordinating and publicizing myriad special events, concerts, exhibits, lectures and proclamations. Its highest recognition, the …