Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Italian-born Marta Castella recently signed on as Italian programs outreach director at Scuola Italiana Enrico Fermi in Chicago, a job she describes as “equal parts cultural bridge and growth architect.”
Founded in 2016, Scuola Fermi is the only full-time Italian immersion school in the Chicago area, offering bilingual education from preschool through K-1. The school integrates the best elements of both Italian and American education, giving students a rigorous, inquiry-based and multilingual learning experience, Castella explains.
“Our innovative Dual Track System allows us to seamlessly integrate students from English-monolingual environments alongside native Italian speakers, ensuring that all children progress confidently in both languages while learning together.”
Castella is responsible for the school’s strategic partnerships and community engagement, and helping refine its branding and marketing strategies.
“My goal is always to build strong, lasting connections between Italy and the U.S.,” she says. “I understand the nuances of both Italian and American workplaces, industries, and ways of thinking, and I genuinely enjoy operating at that interface — bridging gaps, fostering collaboration, and helping ideas flow seamlessly between the two cultures.”
Castella was born and raised in Rome in a family of intellectuals, artists and free thinkers. Her family has a strong connection to the United States, she says. Several relatives immigrated to the U.S. generations ago, and she’s always been curious about tracing her heritage, which began under the name Castelli. Her grandmother worked for NATO in Naples, and her father also had strong ties to the country, she adds.
Castella has a bachelor’s degree from La Sapienza University of Rome, where she majored in American literature and minored in Dutch. During college, she earned a one-year Erasmus scholarship — Europe’s exchange program — that allowed her to study in the Netherlands, which she now considers her second home.
“I absolutely loved living there. It felt like home, and as soon as I had the opportunity, I returned. In total, I spent seven years there, and it became a place where I truly grew into adulthood.”
She pursued the study of linguistics by earning a master’s degree in second language education from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, then completing a research master’s at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
“Linguistics drew me in because it offered the perfect balance of structure and creativity. Coming from literature studies, I often felt frustrated by how subjective interpretations could be,” she says. “Linguistics, however, had rigor, logic and precision, yet was still deeply connected to language.”
In the Netherlands, she studied under Eric Reuland, who taught her how to think like a researcher and why language is so fascinating — what makes it so remarkable and why it is worth studying, she says. “It was under his guidance that I fully grasped the idea that language is a window into the human mind — a concept that has shaped my entire intellectual journey,” she says. “To this day, I carry a photo of him in every office or workspace.”
She eventually completed a PhD in linguistics at the University of Verona, with a joint supervision at Utrecht University.
Before joining Scuola Fermi, Castella worked in design and branding, primarily as a consultant for two biotech firms. She also researched and developed content around children’s books and storytelling, and worked in the hospitality and bar industry, helping organize two major festivals in Rome.
After having visited Chicago several times over the years, including for months at a time, Castella moved to the city just before Thanksgiving last year.
Scuola Fermi is a hub for the Italian-American community and expat families, but also has students with no prior connection to Italy, she says.
Bilingualism is one of the most valuable resources a person can have — not just as a communication tool, but for the lifelong cognitive, academic and social advantages it provides, Castella says.
“Our school appeals to families who recognize the importance of bilingualism and who want their children to develop the flexibility, critical thinking, and global perspective that comes with it. A key part of our mission is also to educate more families about the profound benefits of bilingualism — whether in Italian or any other language.”
Castella says she speaks English and Italian fluently, and has a “strong passive” understanding of French and a “decent” understanding of Dutch. She studied several other languages over the years, but most of them are dormant, she says.
As for why her bio on the Scuola Fermi website states she doesn’t know how many languages she speaks, Castella explains that knowing languages can open the door for understanding others, even without formal study.
“If you’re a native speaker of a Romance language, like Italian, and then you study more Romance languages, such as Portuguese, you get a lot of Spanish ‘for free.’ Similarly, if you are a native speaker of a Slavic language and you study Latin or Italian, you probably get a lot of Romanian ‘for free.’ If you’re strong in German and Hebrew, you get Yiddish ‘for free’ and so on,” she says. “I don’t want to reduce this to language arithmetic, but there are indeed languages that you don’t realize you understand until you’re confronted with them. There are things that happen with languages that are almost magical. And the truth is, I don’t know how many languages I know.”
When it comes to learning languages, it’s important for people to understand what type of learner they are, she says. “Do you prefer learning through listening, or do you learn better by reading? Are you someone who enjoys moving around, perhaps listening to audio lessons while walking, running, or training? Or do you retain information better when you write it down?” she says. “What’s more important than the method itself is identifying how you best learn. What works for you when you’re trying to absorb new material? Find those techniques and make them part of your language learning routine.”
Castella’s interests include weightlifting, meditation and reading early 20th-century literature, including her favorite author, P.G. Wodehouse. She collects antique books, and has about 30 first editions of the Italian translations of Wodehouse’s works published in the 1930s.
As for her future plans, she hopes to stay in the United States long-term, she says. “I’m really in love with Chicago and I’d like to stay here for as long as this city will have me.”
