Patch and writing by Hannah

“The walls of the city, once painted with murals that contained social messages, were now silent and white.”[1]

While Salvador Allende was in power in Chile, beautiful murals covered the city.  But the Pinochet regime, which provides the context for many of the patches about Chile, changed all of that; stripped Chile of its beauty and forced people into despair or, as I am attempting to portray with this quilt, into conscious and unconscious acts of creativity. 

The specific message on this mural, underneath the white veil that covers it, says “Bread, Light, Justice,” a phrase I borrowed from Rosario Castellanos’ story “Indian Mother.”  In this story Castellanos laments the fate of the Indian mother in Mexico and maintains that more fortunate people have the responsibility to fill this woman’s empty hands (literally and figuratively – a sense of empowerment is implied beyond the charity that might spring to mind).  She prays that nobody truly be able to enjoy peace until the Indian mother is able “to give her child bread, light, and justice.”[2]

The murals have been covered in white, “but we are learning…”  This is the last line of a song by Judy Small called “Mothers, Daughters, Wives” about women learning to question the social order in which men are constantly taken into battle and women merely sit aside as mothers, daughters, and wives, expected to support these wars (and only to support these wars) time and time again.

Chile again lives in a democracy, and the hope for “bread, light, and justice” can indeed come to fruition if we work hard enough.  It is the task of all of us to uncover the white veil that has covered the dreams, desires, and necessities every human being deserves.