Bruno Bertucci This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Illinois Chambers of Commerce

   www.businessfinance.com/illino - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/9/2008   Last Visited: 3/9/2008

   Bruno Bertucci

2. 2. NEWCITYCHICAGO.COM: Street Smart Chicago

   www.newcitychicago.com/chicago - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/12/2000   Last Visited: 9/12/2000

   According to the 1990 Census, 24 percent of Highwood's 5,300 residents were Hispanic, but Highwood Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bruno Bertucci says that, today, about half the residents are Latino. La Union supermarket on Sheridan Road is one of the centers of Mexican immigrant life in Highwood. Mexican food products, Spanish-language magazines and keychains bearing the symbols of Mexican soccer teams line the shelves and racks, tacos are sold from a counter, and colorful pinatas hang from the ceiling.
   
   ...
   Mexicans are following the same path as the Italian immigrants of the early 1900s, says Bertucci, the chamber of commerce executive director and the town's unofficial historian.
   
   "It's so similar--it's identical," he says.
   
   Just like the Italians who began coming to Highwood in the early 1900s, Mexicans usually arrive with limited education and little or no English, so they must settle at first for low-paying positions as gardeners, landscapers, dishwashers and buspersons. Gradually, Mexicans are moving into more skilled professions--such as electrical work and plumbing--and opening their own businesses, Bertucci says.
   
   A desire to improve themselves economically, tight-knit families and a strong Catholic religious faith are hallmarks of many Mexican immigrants--as they were of Italians before them.
   
   Some Italians were even "migrant workers," coming to Highwood each spring and summer from their homes in downstate Illinois and in Iowa and Missouri, and going back each winter, Bertucci says. And, he says, just as Mexicans leave their country to escape economic difficulties, Italians left Italy for the same reason, and they migrated to Highwood from small Midwestern towns because the closing of coal mines left them unemployed or underemployed.

3. 3. Membership :: Highwood Chamber of Commerce

   www.highwoodchamberofcommerce. - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/26/2003   Last Visited: 8/24/2006

   Bruno Bertucci