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2003 Winner, Miranda Santucci

"An American Patchwork Quilt"

By Miranda Santucci

Winchester Thurston School

Pittsburgh, PA

 

America reminds me of a beautiful patchwork quilt that covers our nation with a diversity of immigrants. Each quilt square is made up of different colors and textures with a unique design and pattern. Every fabric piece tells an immigrant’s story about overcoming hardships, seeking opportunities, and reaching for dreams. Threads of different languages,customs, foods, cultures, religions, and skills hold all these pieces together.

I’m glad America is a nation of immigrants because these individual patchwork pieces make the whole American quilt more beautiful.


The quilt covers my home, school, neighborhood, and city. It warms me when I celebrate the feast of fishes on Christmas Eve like my father’s Italian ancestors did, when I play with my Greek friend Katarina Konstantinos after school, or when I share the basket blessing tradition at Easter with my neighbor, Peter Muszalski, in his church on Polish Hill. I see many colors in the fabric at my school when I look around at all the different skin tones. I feel how enormous the quilt is when I go through the Strip District and read the storefront signs like Sam-Bok, Stamboolis, Benkovitz,and Sunseri.


I cherish each piece of our country’s quilt. All the immigrant patches are still unique, even though they are sewn together as one. They make our country rich, full, and strong. America’s patchwork quilt is a precious heirloom that should be handled with pride, and handed down through the generations of American history.

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