Today is a special day in the memories of most living Americans: 9/11/2001. Twenty years ago today, the television views of the tragedy in New York City captivated us and stopped us in our tracks, breaking our hearts.
Today, 9/11/2021, our world is still torn asunder by such wartime tragedies along with the covid pandemic. It's the wartime tragedies I am especially reminded of today. My photograph displays three quilts that I have recently completed. They [and at least several more] are destined to be handed soon to the Pacific Northwest coordinator for Quilts Beyond Borders. The quilts plus many more created by hundreds of other helping hands will be given to Afghan families, newly-arrived in Washington state and many other states, whom war has displaced.
These Afghanis are now refugees here in King County and other counties across our nation. They come with only the clothes on their backs, in many instances. So, quilts made in love and welcome and friendship will soon gifted to many of them, along with the basics to begin a whole new life in a new land.
The African animals, portrayed in the fabric of one of my quilts, are depicted during a 'great migration', which, although not by their choice, is what has brought the Afghan families to America to begin a new existence.
Standing in New York City's harbor is our Statue of Liberty. On its pedestal is inscribed the following sonnet, welcoming refugees and immigrants of many generations, from lands near and far. Its words are meant for all new arrivals on both coasts and through all borders of our country.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free,
The wretched
refuse of
Your teeming
shore.
Send these,
the homeless,
tempest-tossed
to me:
I lift my
lamp beside
the golden
door.
- Written in 1883
