The Alverios were among the first Puerto Rican families to settle in New Britain in the mid-1950s, and have played an instrumental role in building and inspiring the Puerto Rican and Latino communities in central Connecticut ever since. 

Growing up the youngest of three sons of Italian immigrant parents in depression-era New Britain during the 1930s, Nick DeNigris learned early and often that success in life was no guarantee.

Naeem Khalid knows all about life’s circumstances. In October, 1984, when he arrived in Houston, Texas, at age 26 from his native Pakistan, prepared to earn his Ph.D. in applied linguistics and/or follow in his father’s footsteps (Pakistan Royal Air Force) working in the aerospace industry, the school year was already well underway.

It begins in 1945, the year that Nowak was born in war-torn Poland. Life for the family of Catholic farmers in the post-World War II era was hard, with the land the Nowaks loved brutalized by years of war and the country under the thumb of Soviet communist rule.