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My Mother Pieced Quilts Analysis

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Unique Patches
In the poem “My Mother Pieced Quilts” the author Teresa Palomo Acosta writes about her mother piecing together quilts and comparing it with the environment around her. In the story “Everyday Use” Alice Walker writes about her daughter coming home and how her daughter thinks she understands heritage but really doesn't. As a quilt is stitched together using different and unique pieces, so is a family. The individuals are the unique pieces of the quilt and the stitching for the family is their heritage. In Acosta’s poem she writes about the way her mother stitched quilts together and she uses powerful words to describe how her mother puts the quilts together and what the intended purpose is. I feel that the author uses the …show more content…

Acosta says that they were used to block harsh winds, and how they were put together. This is significant, because without these memories and the way that they carried out life the heritage would be lost. So when Acosta references the quilts that her mother made with the memories she has it shows how the quilts truly carry the heritage of a family. Acosta shows the unique “shaped patterns square and oblong and round/positioned/balanced” which are like her family (14-16). This shows that a family is very similar to the pieces of a quilt, due to the individuality of the pieces. Acosta then talks about how her mother “cemented them” with her thread, which represents the heritage (17). I think that the author chose to use these words, due to the fact that it shows how a family is held together so strongly by the heritage; which is similar to how a quilt is held together by the stitches. In Walker’s story “Everday Use” she writes about her daughter Dee coming home and wanting things that show her heritage to show that she is cultured; however, she sees that Dee has absolutely no idea what her heritage is. This in my opinion is one of the best works in which the true connection between family and the affect heritage has on it is shown. Walker starts off by describing how her

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