Seedfolks characters

Appears from the start

A nine-year-old Vietnamese American girl who lives beside a rubbish-filled vacant lot in Cleveland. Hoping to feel connected to the father she never knew, she secretly plants lima beans there in the cold soil. Her small private act becomes the beginning of the community garden.

First appears in chapter 2

An elderly Romanian immigrant who has watched the neighborhood from her apartment for many years. Suspicious when she sees Kim burying something in the vacant lot, she investigates and accidentally harms one of the seedlings before realizing that the girl has planted beans.

First appears in chapter 3

A school janitor whose life has been shaped by other people's demands. Ana asks him to help save Kim's damaged bean plants, and caring for them gives him a task he has chosen for himself. His childhood on a Kentucky farm gives him practical knowledge of growing things.

First appears in chapter 4

A Guatemalan boy who has learned English more quickly than the older members of his family and often serves as their interpreter. In the garden, he discovers that language is not the only kind of expertise when his great-uncle immediately understands the soil and plants.

Also known as Tío Juan

First appears in chapter 4

Gonzalo's elderly great-uncle, a former farmer from Guatemala who is isolated in Cleveland because he speaks no English. The vacant lot restores his confidence: he reads the ground, improvises tools, and begins cultivating a plot without needing translation.

First appears in chapter 5

A determined woman who wants to grow goldenrod in memory of her grandmother. Confronted by the lot's heaps of refuse, she carries a bag of its most revolting rubbish through city offices until officials can no longer ignore the neighborhood's problem.

First appears in chapter 6

A retired man who enjoys bringing strangers together. He sees the emerging garden as a chance to make the neighborhood more humane, hires help for his own plot, and notices that the gardeners' fences and groupings reproduce some of the divisions found outside the lot.

First appears in chapter 7

A Haitian boy whose father takes over the plot Sam has paid someone to cultivate. The family plants baby lettuce as a business venture, placing adult hopes and financial pressure on a crop that is vulnerable to heat and other setbacks.

First appears in chapter 8

A Korean immigrant who withdrew from other people after a violent robbery at her dry-cleaning shop. The sight of neighbors working in the garden draws her out again, and she joins them by planting hot peppers and contributing funnels so that water can reach the dry soil more effectively.

First appears in chapter 9

A physically imposing young man who plants tomatoes as part of his effort to win back Lateesha, a woman he once neglected. He guards the plants closely and employs Royce to watch them, but his private display gradually draws him into the garden's wider community.

First appears in chapter 9

A homeless teenager who initially sleeps in the garden. Curtis hires him to protect a valuable tomato crop, and the work gives Royce a recognized place among the gardeners, who begin feeding him and treating him as part of their community.

First appears in chapter 10

A British nurse who cares for Mr. Myles, an elderly man who communicates only through gestures. When he signals that he wants to visit the garden, she helps him establish a flower bed and finds herself becoming an eager gardener as well.

First appears in chapter 10

Nora's elderly client, who uses a wheelchair and can no longer speak. He makes his wish to join the garden clear by pointing, then selects flowers by responding to their pictures, asserting preferences that his physical condition often keeps hidden.

First appears in chapter 11

A pregnant Mexican American teenager who is resentfully attending a program for expectant mothers. At first she has little interest in the group's garden plot or in her pregnancy, but watching the plants endure and change begins to alter how she imagines the life ahead of her.

First appears in chapter 12

An Indian immigrant who runs a fabric shop and grows eggplants in the lot. The garden lets him meet neighbors who had previously been only distant faces or stereotypes to one another, though he also witnesses how quickly fear can revive old divisions.

First appears in chapter 13

A woman who considers herself a watcher rather than a gardener. Remembering ancestors who planted their first crops after reaching freedom, she observes the lot through its first year and recognizes its growers as a new group of seedfolks putting down roots.