WEST HILLS : Class Threads History Theme Through Quilt

Most of the fifth-graders illustrated the great American ideals--freedom, equal opportunity, justice--they picked up from history books.

Tamila Gharabeigi, 11, picked them up from her own history.

At 3, she and her family left Iran for a new life in the United States. She knows what opportunity means.

“It was hard to live in Iran,” said Tamila, who attends Welby Way Magnet Elementary School in West Hills. “Ladies and girls had to cover their hair, and there weren’t a lot of jobs there. Everyone was saying America’s a good country, so we just came over here and decided to stay.”

Tamila and her 28 classmates helped stitch together a giant quilt of squares, which they had colored to represent symbols and slogans of what America means to them.

The quilt was submitted this week for judging at the Los Angeles County Fair.

Entries will be displayed during the fair, to be held from early September through mid-October at the Fairplex in Pomona.

The fifth-graders discovered a lot about their country, and about each other.

“We realized how lucky we are,” said Patty Saji, 11. “Some people don’t have the freedom to believe what they want to believe.”

Added Ashley Benning, 11: “We learned about teamwork, how to take turns and share.”

Earlier this month, the class was also fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of American history away from the textbook.

On a five-day field trip to the Northeast, the students visited Valley Forge to see where George Washington and his troops camped out during the hard winter of 1777.

“When you’re just reading it out of a book, it gets real boring,” Ashley said, “but when there’s a person pretending to be an infantryman, shooting muskets [during battle re-enactments], you can tell what they went through.”

The class also saw the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and visited the Amish.

This is the third year in a row that Welby Way has entered a quilt at the Los Angeles County Fair.

Two years ago, the school received an honorable mention, and last year was awarded a second-place prize.