Profiles

When Gianluca Butticè moved from his native Sicily to the U.S., he faced the challenges of learning English and American culture. Surmounting that learning curve inspired him to make the journey easier for others. So after spending the past several years teaching Italian, he is branching out into offering tours of Italy that encompass language and culture in a mutually enhancing way. “I know the doors that are opened when you learn a new language,” he says, explaining that traveling, learning the culture of a country and learning the language can all reinforce each other. Butticè, 41, believes everything he …

Paul Sorvino is a true Renaissance man. Best known for his acting in film and television, he also is an accomplished sculptor and opera singer, as well as a writer and businessman. And now, he is the author along with his wife Dee Dee of a new cookbook that may be the beginning of his re-emergence into the food industry. In Sorvino’s mind, it’s just another outlet for him as an artist and as an Italian American. “Cooking is an art. The way we do it it’s an art. It’s an art and the results are almost immediate,” Sorvino says. …

At a recent awards banquet, Judie Vitiritti-Lynch was so engaged in talking to her former students that she didn’t hear the emcee announce her name. A colleague prompted her to walk up to the podium, because she had won the Italian Consulate in Chicago’s first-ever Midwest Award for Leadership in the Teaching of the Italian Language and Culture. “I was stunned, because I was up against some very good people, and everyone was so deserving,” recalls Vitiritti-Lynch, who became Addison Trail High School’s first Italian language teacher in the early 1990s and pioneered the program. In her first year, she …

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing one of professional boxing’s most respected stars outside of the ring. From Chicago, the only Italian-American professional boxing judge in the state of Illinois, always in the neutral corner, is Mauro DiFiore. DiFiore never steps into the ring and he must always maintain strict neutrality. His skills and 50 years of boxing experience have made him one of the most sought after professional boxing judges in the world. His reputation as one of the best has brought him to a level few ever attain. The globetrotting DiFiore has judged championship matches all over the world. He …

Sportivo Management Group founder Anthony H. Isabelli has parlayed a deep appreciation for his Italian heritage into a new role that he hopes will allow more Italian Americans to examine their own roots. In December, he was appointed to the position of United States Foreign Committee president for the Association of Sport, Culture and Leisure (ASCI), an Italian organization headquartered in Rome. This new post will allow Isabelli to further his mission of encouraging cultural exchanges between America and Italy by creating opportunities for young athletes from both countries to compete against each other. In an official statement, Isabelli expressed …

The Chicagoland Italian American Charitable Organization honored Louis Scaramuzzo as Humanitarian of the Year on April 29 at Medinah Shrine Center in Addison.  A top performer in the luxury automobile market for three decades, Lou pours his heart and soul into every aspect of his life. With paternal grandparents Louis and Immaculata Scaramuzzo hailing from Caserta near Naples, and maternal grandparents Carmelo and Rosina Termine emigrating from Marsala in Sicily, Lou’s Italian roots run deep. The oldest Peter and Mary Scaramuzzo for children, Lou was born in Chicago and raised in Oak Lawn. “My parents grew up on Taylor Street …

Anthony Ambrose is having a busy year. Months after accepting the post of chief of police at the Oak Park Police Department in August, a place he’s called home since his patrol days in 1984, he was elected president of the Columbian Club of Chicago. “Everything is kind of happening all at the same time,” he laughs, “but it’s a chance to give back to the community.” “Community” is a word Ambrose returns to often. He has held eight positions over 33 years at the OPPD prior to his ascent to the top spot, but it’s his time as community …

Growing up in an Italian-American family, Kathryn Occhipinti experienced the Italian food, the emphasis on togetherness and the practicing of the Catholic faith. But she felt one piece of her heritage was missing: the language. Her grandparents and parents would converse in Italian, making it even more of a mysterious to her. After completing her medical training, she spent years studying the language, writing books and teaching classes in conversational Italian. She gears her efforts toward adult learners with a desire to travel to Italy. “Today, people are trying to understand where they came from, and the language was really …

  “I grew up in the kitchen. I didn’t walk in the front door of the restaurant, I walked in the kitchen door.” Gabriela Littleton has a little more skin in the game as director of banquets and private dining at Chicago steakhouse staple the Erie Cafe. To be exact, she has four generations worth, having spent the past two years working in concert with her grandfather, father, uncle and sister at the Lenzi-family owned business. Growing up in the restaurant world didn’t initially pave the way to Littleton’s current career. “We were really pushed NOT to be involved in …

  An Italian teacher and administrator in northwest suburban High School District 214, Angela Briguglio Hawkins was known as “the American” when she was growing up in Sicily. That’s because she was born in Oak Park, but her parents decided to move the family back to their native Sicily when Briguglio Hawkins was two-and-a-half years old. They missed their relatives. “I did all my schooling in Italy, up until the equivalent of the first year in high school,” she says. “But then my dad was worried about the lack of economic opportunity in Europe, so my parents moved back to …