Fred L. Gardaphé

Fred Gardaphé was born in Chicago and raised in Melrose Park, Illinois, a predominantly Italian American community. His grandparents on his mother's side emigrated from Bari, Italy. On his father's side, his grandmother's family emigrated from Basilicata, his grandfather's family from Canada and France. He attended Sacred Heart Grammar School, Fenwick Preparatory High School (Oak Park) and Triton College (River Grove) where he earned an Associate of Arts degree in 1973. He earned a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Education at the University of Wisconsin- Madison (1976), a Master's Degree in English at the University of Chicago (1982) and his PhD in Literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1993) with an emphasis on cultural criticism and American multicultural literature. With his former wife, Susan, he has two children. They are Frederico, who worked as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence in the Obama White House from 2008 to 2013 and is currently a student in the MBA program at NYU's Stern School of Business, and Marianna, the mother of their two grandsons.