Patch and writing by Ruth Irupé Sanabria.  A patch about her mother, Alicia Partnoy, lies directly below Ruti's on the quilt, and below that is a patch made by Raquel Partnoy, Alicia's mother and Ruti's grandmother.

Dear Hannah,

How are you? I am doing ok. I have enclosed the patch. It was actually fun. This was the first time I got to engage in sewing/ quilt project. I liked the way it felt; sewing my ideas, trying to sew a poem, a history onto a little patch. As you can tell, I did not sew the entire image, I made some images with marker because I felt the idea would come out clearer if I drew it rather than tried to sew. I have no skills in sewing.

I answered the question about the moment that transformed my world view. For me it was experiencing the repression in Argentina during the 70’s and 80’s (i.e. The Dirty War). Both my parents were disappeared and then later imprisoned. I separated the patch in two sides. But the sides are connected. On the right is a gun symbolic of the dirty war and blood dripping from it (as would smoke maybe) onto “30,000 disappeared”. Above the gun is an eye with tear (I thought of my mother, my father and their pain) and my voice asking the question “where are they?” (alluding to the distance and the disappearance). The gun is both pointed at the little girl’s back or side (she is on a humble green piece of earth) who seems to have her arms raised against the gun but actually her arms are raised towards the sun and the birds a child insisting on hope.

I hope you like it.

Love,

Ruti