The vacant lot garden in Seedfolks brings people from different races gradually together just as the plants grow gradually every day. When Kim plants the first seed in the garden, she plants the seed of friendship and unity that spreads and grows until the community has found something that they have in common despite their many differences. As Korean Sae Young says that the garden made her feel, “very good inside. Feel part of garden. Almost like family.”(Page 39)
The garden is a symbol of the world in that people from all over the earth plant there and live close to people from a different race. The garden was at first separated in to sections of different nationalities. But as time went on, people started to mingle with people from different races. The earth is smaller than it seems, and because of this, we all need to learn to get along with people from a different place. This is what happens in the garden. There will always be problems, like the people dumping tires on the lot and people stealing the vegetables, but if we work together, we can make the world a better place.
Not only does the garden grow fruits and vegetables, but the seeds of friendship are planted and nurtured until everyone in the garden are friends with those who they had never been friends before, as shown in Amir’s experience with a fellow gardener. This woman had before criticized him for not giving her the correct change and had called him a dirty foreigner. But then, after the garden, everything changed. The woman praises his eggplants, but then she is reminded of their bad past by Amir,
“Her eyes became huge. She apologized to me over and over again. She kept saying, “Back then, I didn’t know it was you….” (Page 64)
As the garden grows, many people also learn important lessons that shape their life, such as Maricella, a pregnant teenager, who learns the importance of the baby growing inside her.
“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.”(Page 57)
A theme that is illustrated in the events of this garden is that people from all races, nationalities and cultures can come together as one through a community garden. The people that worked in the garden found friendship that enriched their lives and their community. This happened because they began to be less wary of people from different races. The garden made it easy for them to reach out to others. It is the same way in our world today. Many wars would never start if we stopped to understand and get to know other nationalities before being scared of them. Through the simple act of understanding before judging, we can make the world a better place.
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