STITCHED TOGETHER : A STORY - - A STATEMENT

BERRY PATCH WORK 46" X 48"
by pam beal

It was summer when the United Auto Workers voted to strike. Dad had picket line duty, and strike pay to cover the most basic needs. Our neighbors invited us to join them in the blueberry fields and the four of us became field hands. From my youthful point of view, we were about to have an adventure. 

Our new co-workers welcomed us with warmth and lots of help and advice. Quickly and correctly removing blueberries from the bush requires skill and just the right moves. We were paid cents per bucket, and our days were long, hot and dirty. But there you were! I experienced the music of your language, your kindness, and your work ethic. 

While I stitched this quilt, troubling circumstances called me back to my berry patch days, and the neighbors I loved. They were of Mexican heritage. Our family was....what? According to my dad, we were "mutts" from a mixed background of long ago, and not so long ago immigrants. And there was that story about how a neighbor spoke unkindly to my grandfather (a Swedish immigrant who served America in World War I) making fun of his English, and how my grandmother set that woman straight in no uncertain terms.

The quilt is now completed but significant trouble persists. It is dangerous for a society to turn away from empathy. Immoral immigration policies now culminate in the forceful removal of children from their parents. Some of the children are confined to a tent city in the heat of Texas. Subjecting vulnerable human beings to this violence is an atrocity. 

In my idea of America we stand Indivisible with her, Lady Liberty, and practice hospitality, diversity and inclusion. 

We are stitched together.

Papa and buttons from his uniform which I found in Nana's button box