The Immigrant Experience Theme Analysis

A majority of the narrators in Seedfolks are immigrants. Many hail from Central America or the Caribbean, while many more came to the U.S. from Asia. No matter where the novel’s characters come from, though, almost all find their new lives in Cleveland, Ohio, to be challenging because of their immigrant status. By presenting such a variety of immigrant stories, Seedfolks shows that immigrants all experience a difficult transition from their home country to their new country for various reasons, including not being able to speak English or experiencing instances of racism. Seedfolks makes the case that the best way to smooth that transition from one country to another is through fostering pride, purpose, and a sense of belonging in a person’s new home.

Seedfolks shows that Cleveland has been a destination for immigrants for more than a century. Ana, an elderly woman who immigrated to Cleveland from Eastern Europe in 1919 when she was four years old, gives readers an overview of Cleveland’s history as it pertains to immigration. She explains how, when she was a child, Romanians inhabited the neighborhood surrounding Gibb Street. But as time went on, the neighborhood changed—the Romanians left, making way for Black people from the American South during the Great Migration and eventually, in the novel’s present of the mid-1990s, immigrants from Central America and Asia. Ana describes the neighborhood as a “cheap hotel” that immigrants pass through on their way to someplace better. Rather than it being a permanent home for a tight-knit community, the neighborhood is a revolving door with immigrants constantly coming and going.

Seedfolks suggests that being an immigrant means feeling like—and sometimes being treated like—an alien in a foreign land. This most often shows up in instances when narrators either don’t speak English or have family members who speak little or no English. Not being able to speak the country’s dominant language, Seedfolks suggests, is profoundly alienating. For Gonzalo’s great-uncle, Tío Juan, this language barrier essentially turns him into a “little baby,” unable to do anything for himself or understand what’s going on around him. Other narrators suggest that not being able to communicate makes it hard to connect with neighbors when people speak so many languages. Without a common language binding the neighbor’s residents, it’s difficult to feel supported, safe, or at home. More sinister, however, are the various instances of racism that all the novel’s characters, especially immigrant characters, experience. Sae Young, a Korean immigrant, details her traumatic experience of being robbed at gunpoint and beaten, and an Indian man named Amir shares that a customer in his fabric shop—an Italian immigrant herself—accused him of giving her the wrong change and called him a “dirty foreigner.” Instances like these make it impossible for immigrants to feel welcome—or even safe—in Cleveland.

The remedy for this, Seedfolks suggests, is to first foster community and belonging. Over the course of the community garden’s first summer, the neighborhood’s residents eventually find that they’re not so different from each other. They may hail from different parts of the globe and speak different languages, but they have things in common, too—many want to grow traditional crops from their countries of origin, and many take solace in digging in the dirt alongside others. The garden, in other words, makes the novel’s various characters feel like they’re a part of something bigger, which in turn makes them feel like they’re valued, essential members of the neighborhood. The garden, in this sense, helps immigrants move away from the feeling that they’re just passing through by “planting” them in the garden and the neighborhood.

Seedfolks suggests that it’s also essential for immigrants to find purpose and something to feel proud of in their new home. Tío Juan, for instance, undergoes a major transformation as he and Gonzalo work to cultivate a plot in the garden. It takes only a few days for Tío Juan, who was a farmer in Guatemala, to stand out as a gardening expert. In addition to growing his own garden, Tío Juan makes a point to help other novice gardeners successfully cultivate plants of their choosing. This helps Tío Juan, who speaks no English or Spanish, overcome the language barrier and connect with others by showing them how to stake tomatoes, for instance, or properly water tiny lettuce seeds without washing them away. And being helpful and part of the community like this gives Tío Juan something to feel proud of. For the first time since he came to Cleveland, he has a purpose—to help others discover a love of gardening and nature.

Seedfolks makes it clear that being an immigrant in a foreign country is profoundly lonely, isolating, and difficult. Immigrating to a new country can deprive someone of their sense of self-worth and their ability to connect with others. And because of this, being able to find a sense of purpose, pride, and connection can be immensely stabilizing—and provide comfort and community in a place that may otherwise seem dangerously different.