Maria and Antonio Fidela illegally crossed the Mexican-American border in 1944.  Antonio didn't want to cross.  They were poor farmers and their latest crop had been a good one.  By the grace of God, their parched little plot of land had churned out mountains of corn and chiles.  The corn would have fed the couple for months and the chiles were a good cash crop.  To leave would have meant abandoning wealth and status that had been unheard of in their family for generations.  Maria, however, was adamant.  She was three months pregnant and was hell-bent on seeing her new baby born a native of the United States.  So, Maria and her husband came to America and settled down in a small, Kansas homestead, where their baby boy, Antonio Jr., was born.  He was an American citizen by birth. 

Antonio Jr. was a loyal son and a hard worker.  He spent his childhood and teen years engaged in backbreaking labor on the farm.  When he turned twenty, he walked east to look for a better life in the city.   One day, he came to Kestrel City, where he was lucky enough to land an internship at a brokerage firm.  Fidela was a virtual genius when it came to business and accounting.  He didn't have the mind  for the more abstract branches of mathematics, but he was smart.  He was cunning.  And he remembered everything he saw or heard. 

Fidela did not get far in the firm.  Threatened by the young farmboy's apparently endless talents, the management kept him on the lowest rung of the ladder.  But Fidela was persistant.  By doing favors for influential clients, Fitch built a network of contacts.  This network began feeding him privileged information with which he amassed a great deal of wealth through clever investments.

For a year after that, he vanished.  While his investments were still accruing interest, Fidela himself was nowhere to be found.  Many urban legends are told about where the young man was during that time, including one that claims he studied vodou, but the man himself simply says he "took some time out to read."  Regardless, when he returned, he insisted on being called by his Americanized name, Anthony Fitch.  Using his newfound capital, Fitch founded his own company, Fitch Industries, Incorporated.  It quickly became a massive mega-corporation with holdings in the oil, automobile, weapons, housing, and genetics industries.

It has often been theorized that Fitch's wealth is due in part to an affiliation with Kestrel City's underworld.  Although it does seem that Kestrel's organized crime ring has a powerful financial backer, no evidence has been found to conclusively link Fitch to anything more unlawful than an unpaid parking ticket.