> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Susan Rodgers > Reference:: https://www.thejugaadproject.pub/home/karenni-refugee > Date:: 2024 > Tags:: #warp #USA #textiles > WeftLinks:: [[Migrant and refugee value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft provides a way of sustaining cultural attachments to home]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > This is a case study of a Karenni refugess who uses weaving to navigate her refugee journey. ### Highlights Artisans in resettling refugee communities in Worcester, Massachusetts sometimes use their craft-making as a means of solace in the face of troubling memories. Upon arriving in Worcester, however, Tu Meh encountered a nonprofit, Refugee Artisans of Worcester (RAW), which offered weaving supplies for free and encouraged thread-level and motif-level creativity and innovation, the better to market the textiles to American publics seeking to buy “traditional crafts” and to help refugees financially. Rose placed three handfuls of pecans, a tattered old dress, and a lock of her own hair; family stories about the sack’s contents passed down over generations as the bag was kept by descendants, until Rose’s great-granddaughter Ruth embroidered a kind of poem onto the material in multi-colored thread.  The lines went as follows (Miles 2022, 5): > My great grandmother Rose > mother of Ashley gave her this sack when > she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina > it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of > pecans a braid of Roses hair.  Told her > It be filled with my Love always > She never saw her again > Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton 1921 [punctuation as in the original].