We the Italians October 3, 2014 - 44 | Page 29

Who are these new Italians emigrants in your area?

They are highly skilled professionals, primarily hired in corporations, academia and research, from economics to medicine (eg there are many physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory “Fermilab”, about 1h30 from Chicago), with a significant presence of Italian doctors in the main city hospital. Finally, there is an interesting number of qualified professionals among Italian enterprises operating here.

And what about the Italian American community in Chicago, where do they generally work?

In general, the ItalianAmerican community in Chicago is very active, well integrated into the social fabric and with exemplary success stories, typical of our history of emigration. Many indeed are those who occupy elected positions in all sectors of the local politics and senior managerial positions in important enterprises.

Our job is to try to create an interaction between the various components, the old and the new emigration, to foster new synergies that can give new life to our community. To this end, I recently set up a large database of Italian people, ItalianAmericans and people interested in our country, that receives a newsletter about the various activities that take place at different levels in the Chicago metropolitan area, whether they are organized by associations founded many years ago, or by the most recent association of young entrepreneurs or by the Symphony Orchestra of Chicago. The common denominator must still be the connotation of “Italian event”.

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