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Chapter 1: Kim
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Seedfolks, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gardening and Community
Nature, Mental Health, and the City
The Immigrant Experience
Family, Memory, and the Future
Summary
Analysis
Ana loves to sit and look out the window. It means she doesn’t need a TV, as from her window she can see 48 apartment windows and a sliver of Lake Erie. From this window, she’s seen history. She moved here in 1919 at age four and watched horse-drawn fruit carts and coal wagons outside. Back then, it was mostly Romanians who lived on Gibb Street. But this is a working-class neighborhood and people only stay until they have enough money to leave. After the Romanians came the Slovaks, Italians, and Black families.
Insisting that she doesn’t need a TV because she has so much to look at out her window suggests that the trappings of the modern world, such as TV, aren’t as necessary as one might think. Indeed, if one is only willing to look outside, there’s a whole world of entertainment available. Ana also gives readers a brief history of immigration in Cleveland. Her history lesson paints things in broad strokes, but it seems clear that the neighborhood encompassing Gibb Street is constantly changing as immigrants come and then leave.
Themes
Gibb Street eventually became the line that divided the Black part of town from the white part. Ana lived across town for 18 years and then moved back to take care of her parents—and at that point, the line between Black and white moved too. The white people left first, but once the factories closed, then everyone left. Buildings sat empty, men sat drinking, and people killed each other.
Previously, Ana didn’t talk about the changing neighborhood as though it was necessarily a bad thing—but here, her story takes a turn for the worse. She suggests that while the constant revolving door of immigrants may have made for a generally unstable community, losing economic opportunity in the form of the factories has turned the neighborhood into a dangerous place. This suggests that Kim was right to be nervous about being in the lot—she might be at risk of experiencing violence out on her own.
Themes
Now, Ana sees families from Mexico, Cambodia, and other countries she knows nothing about. There are new languages in the neighborhood, but the one thing that doesn’t change is that people still leave as soon as they can. Ana is the only one who stays. She still stares out the same window she did as a young girl.
Ana’s tone here suggests that, as the only person who hasn’t left the neighborhood, she feels left behind. Insisting that she knows nothing about the current immigrants on the street also implies that the neighborhood isn’t tight-knit in the present. It’s not the kind of neighborhood where people share stories about themselves and their home countries.
Themes
This spring, Ana sees something odd. Down in the abandoned lot next to her building, she sees a little girl with black hair digging in the dirt behind a refrigerator. The girl looks around suspiciously, and it only takes Ana a moment to realize the girl is burying something. Though Ana has no children of her own, she’s certain that this girl is involved in something illegal. Ana has spent the last 20 years as a typist for the Parole department, so she’s sure the girl has just buried drugs, money, or a gun.
The little girl is Kim, planting her lima beans by the refrigerator. Readers know that Kim looks around with suspicion because she’s afraid to be in the lot—but to Ana, who seems generally untrusting of young people, this seems to indicate Kim is doing something illegal. Ana implies that illicit activity isn’t unusual in this neighborhood, even for a girl of nine. But it’s also worth keeping in mind that in her work for the police department, Ana would’ve only been exposed to the stories of kids who were getting in trouble. Because of her experience, her perspective may be skewed.
Themes
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Ana considers calling the police, but she spends the next few mornings watching the girl instead. It rains a few days in a row and Ana doesn’t see the girl at all. When the weather warms, Ana sees her several times in the mornings on her way to school, crouching down with her back to Ana’s window. Ana’s curiosity feels like a fever.
It’s telling that Ana’s first thought is to call the police, as it emphasizes that Ana deeply distrusts her neighbors. While Ana seems perplexed as to why Kim comes to the vacant lot on some days and not others, readers may pick up on the fact that Kim is coming to water her plants on days when it doesn’t rain.
Themes
One morning, the girl looks around and glances right into Ana’s window. Ana pulls back, hoping the girl didn’t see her. If the girl saw her, the girl will definitely dig up her treasure and move it. Ana vows to dig it up first, so she waits an hour after the girl leaves. Then she takes a butter knife and hobbles to the girl’s spot in the vacant lot. Ana hacks in the dirt with her butter knife, but only finds some big white beans.
Choosing to dig up Kim’s treasure before Kim can move it again emphasizes that Ana is distrusting of her neighbors, but that she has reason to believe that something illicit is going on. It also seems that Ana genuinely wants to protect the neighborhood from nefarious activities—given that she’s been in the neighborhood for so long, she perhaps feels a sense of protectiveness over it.
Themes
Suddenly, Ana realizes what’s going on and what she’s done. Two of the beans have roots and she knows she’s harmed them. It feels like she’s read the girl’s secret diary and accidentally ripped out a page. Ana carefully replants the beans. The next morning, the girl is back and Ana can see her water beans. That afternoon, Ana buys binoculars.
At this point, Ana has to confront that she’s made a mistake: Kim is just growing vegetables, not hiding drugs or weapons. To Ana, finding the beans feels even more intimate than discovering something illegal—and it makes Kim seem human and sympathetic in Ana’s eyes. This is perhaps why Ana then buys binoculars. She seems to crave human connection, and watching Kim is a way to satisfy that longing.
Themes
