The DePaulia 2.5.2024

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DePaulia

The

Volume #108 | Issue #12 | Feb. 5, 2024 | depauliaonline.com

‘It was our moment of blessing’ CARY ROBBINS | LA DEPAULIA

The Mota-Rivero and Kessler-Flauto families stand in front of the tree remembering the day they first met after eating dinner together on the night of Nov. 5, 2023. Since that day, the families have started to eat dinners together and feel their families have merged into one.

Migrant family finds a home with the help of a DePaul professor By Cary Robbins Managing Editor, La DePaulia

The home of Kelly Kessler, a DePaul professor, was louder than usual one night in early November. She and her wife Elizabeth Flauto were preparing chicken and dumpling soup to share with who they call their new family. The Venezuelan couple and their young son had just landed in Chicago five months before, after a long journey from their home country. The sound of cards flipping — while Kessler and Pablo, the young boy, played cards — intertwined with the sounds of pots clanking, knives cutting cheese and laughter. When Emilio Mota came to the U.S. with his partner Albani Rivero and their 4-yearold son, Pablo Mota, they had high hopes of finding safety and a home for Pablo. They were escaping extreme poverty and misery caused by Venezuela’s political turmoil. They didn’t immediately find a home but did find Kessler and her wife, who opened their house and heart to them a few days after arriving in the city. Thanks to the cou-

ple’s support, the migrant family has a lawyer helping them with their asylum case, and they also have an apartment after months of struggling in the city-run shelters. Leaving their native country wasn’t easy. It took Rivero and Mota months to prepare, and the day they decided to make the trek North was “a day of much thinking,” Rivero said. After their son ingested a poisonous chemical, they realized they could not afford to take him to the doctor. This pushed them to make a definitive decision to say goodbye to their loved ones in Guarico, Venezuela. For months, the family traveled through South and Central America on foot. When they finally arrived in Chicago, they found themselves feeling hopeless. Though they had found safety in a migrant shelter at Wilbur Wright College on Chicago’s Northwest Side, they were lost as they tried to navigate life in a new city. That’s when Flauto, Kessler’s wife, found them in June. The family was standing underneath a tree outside their house in Jefferson Park. Rivero said they were trying to find a

way to Skokie to fill out paperwork required by the shelter. When Rivero saw Flauto come outside, she felt an instinct to ask her for help. “It was our moment of blessing,” Rivero said. Neither of them spoke the other’s language. Mota opened a translator app on his phone. He used it to explain where they needed to go. Flauto invited the family into her backyard. She offered them fruit and tortilla chips. Her mother-in-law grilled chicken and gave the family as much food as they could carry to take with them. Flauto arranged transportation for them to get to Skokie and before they left, they exchanged phone numbers. “So that was day one,” Kessler said. “And it just kind of went from there.” Later that same week, Mota went to their house to do yard work. But the side job would turn into family dinners. “He was so dedicated to finding a job and taking care of his family…” Flauto said. “I sort

of fell in love with them.” By November, after countless dinners together, the two families seemed to have become just one. Before they had dinner once more at Kessler-Flauto’s house on Nov. 5, Rivero sat on the couch and turned to Flauto’s mother, Cissy Hubbard, to say, “I love you” in English. As Flauto prepared soup in a vibrant orange kitchen, Rivero came in and out, helping to prepare the table in the dining room. It took a few months for the family to feel that comfortable in the Kessler-Flauto house, and those months consisted of a few moments of give and take on both sides. Kessler and her wife quickly realized that the Mota-Rivero family also needed financial help. So they created a GoFundMe account that raised nearly $10,000 to pay for the lawyers to file their asylum case. Much of their family, friends and DePaul community donated to the fund. In October, the family was notified that their asylum case was in process, and now Mota has a work permit. This is something that seemed distant and unattainable when

SEE MOTA FAMILY, PAGES 5 & 10

CHICAGO CITY COUNCIL PASSES

RESOLUTION FOR CEASE-FIRE IN GAZA

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