Similarities Between Two Kinds And My Mother Pieced Quilts

Not a single person lives the same life or shares everything in common with someone else. However, one bond that everyone possess is culture. Culture is not the same for every person, and everyone that identifies themselves with a certain culture is not exactly the same (Trumbull and Pacheco 10). Culture consistently influences the way humans perceive the world, items, others, as shown in “Two Kinds’ by Amy Tan and My Mother Pieced Quilts by Teresa Palomo Acosta.

Amy Tan’s mother associated fortune and success with America because of her culture. “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America” (Tan 21). Tan’s mother was a first generation immigrant from China who left in sought of a better life. The reason her mother viewed America as a safe-haven was because she associated her Chinese culture with sadness and death. After losing twin girls and her entire family in China the American culture had become more and more appealing. Tan stated that when her mother moved to America she “never looked back” and although she still carried parts of her Chinese culture with her, like the

This quilt was crafted by her mother and encompassed her memories. The black silk she wore to her mother’s funeral, her spouse’s santa fe shirt, and summer denims were just a few meaningful pieces in the quilt. Acosta described her mother as a painter and the quilt as her canvas. She also detailed about the long process that her mother went through making the quilt to portray how much time and love really went into crafting every detail of the quilt. The quilt was a display of the author’s culture, her family, and that is why it is more than just fabric stitched together. The quilt was a representation of her mother and because that is a significant part of her culture the quilt was extremely sentimental (Acosta