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Tío Juan
Leona is a middle-aged Black woman and one of the novel’s narrators. She’s the person responsible for getting the garbage cleared from the vacant lot. Leona takes on this task in part because she wants to grow goldenrod, which reminds her of her Granny—as it is with many of the novel’s characters, the garden is a way for Leona to connect to her past and family. But she also spearheads the project of getting the lot cleaned because, as the mother of two boys who attend a high school “with more guns than books,” she’s experienced when it comes to making phone calls and convincing people in official positions to take action. Over the two days that Leona spends on the phone with the city, the state, and the federal government, she comes to the conclusion that in order to be successful, she’ll need to make herself real to the people she’s speaking to. To do this, Leona packs a bag full of putrid garbage from the lot and goes to the local health department to give them a whiff. This helps her show the officials there how important it is to get the garbage removed—and impresses upon them that real people live in the neighborhood. Later, Leona reappears again when she’s one of the only adults who doesn’t treat Maricela poorly for being a pregnant teen. Leona also doesn’t condemn Maricela for not wanting to be pregnant; instead, she encourages Maricela to see herself as part of a rich life cycle that includes people, plants, and animals.
Leona Quotes in Seedfolks
The Seedfolks quotes below are all either spoken by Leona or refer to Leona. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5: Leona
Quotes
Six and a half hours later I found out the lot was owned by the city. But the people running Cleveland don’t usually come down here, unless they take a wrong turn on the freeway. You can’t measure the distance between my block and City Hall in miles.
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Chapter 11: Maricela
Quotes
She talked on, how plants don’t run on electricity or clock time, how none of nature did. How nature ran on sunlight and rain and the seasons, and how I was a part of that system. The words sort of put me into a daze. My body was part of nature. I was related to bears, to dinosaurs, to plants, to things that were a million years old. It hit me that this system was much older and stronger than the other. She said how it wasn’t some disgrace to be part of it. She said it was an honor. I stared at the squash plants. It was a world in there. It seemed like I could actually see the leaves and flowers growing and changing. I was in that weird daze. And for just that minute I stopped wishing my baby would die.
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Leona Quotes in Seedfolks
The Seedfolks quotes below are all either spoken by Leona or refer to Leona. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5: Leona
Quotes
Six and a half hours later I found out the lot was owned by the city. But the people running Cleveland don’t usually come down here, unless they take a wrong turn on the freeway. You can’t measure the distance between my block and City Hall in miles.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Maricela
Quotes
She talked on, how plants don’t run on electricity or clock time, how none of nature did. How nature ran on sunlight and rain and the seasons, and how I was a part of that system. The words sort of put me into a daze. My body was part of nature. I was related to bears, to dinosaurs, to plants, to things that were a million years old. It hit me that this system was much older and stronger than the other. She said how it wasn’t some disgrace to be part of it. She said it was an honor. I stared at the squash plants. It was a world in there. It seemed like I could actually see the leaves and flowers growing and changing. I was in that weird daze. And for just that minute I stopped wishing my baby would die.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
