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Chapter 8: Sae Young
Themes
and Colors
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
Curtis used to take pride in his muscles and work out every day—but then Lateesha broke up with him. They had a great relationship. Lateesha was a few years older and always talked about having a family and living out in the country, but Curtis didn’t really listen. He was only 23 and enjoyed getting attention from other girls. When Lateesha found out about this, she slammed the door in his face. This was five years ago.
By emphasizing that he used to take pride in his appearance and enjoy getting attention from girls, Curtis suggests that he’s become more humble since that time in his life. On another note, the mention that Lateesha always wanted to live in the country speaks again to the draw of the natural world. This idea runs throughout the story on a smaller scale, as characters find themselves drawn to the community garden.
Active
Themes
Now that he’s lost Lateesha, Curtis understands her value. He’s done messing around—he’s looking for a wife, and he knows Lateesha is looking for a husband. This is because back in May, when Curtis moved back from Cincinnati, he ran into Lateesha’s brother. He said that Lateesha is still single and still lives in the same apartment. But later, Lateesha refused to talk to Curtis when they ran into each other in the street. She shut down his attempts to talk twice—so now, Curtis is going to show her how much he loves her.
Given that the garden is instrumental in bringing people together—and Lateesha wants to live in the country, surrounded by nature—this passage suggests that the garden will be pivotal in Curtis’s plan to court Lateesha again. So far, the book has shown that the community garden has the power to bring together dissimilar people—connecting them across generational gaps, cultural differences, and language barriers. The clear animosity Lateesha has for Curtis, then, raises the question of if the garden can heal romantic relationships, too.
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Themes
Lateesha lives across from the garden, so Curtis claims a plot by the sidewalk that’ll be easy for her to see. Then he buys six little tomato plants. Lateesha loves tomatoes—she eats them in sandwiches and eats them plain like apples, and she always talked about eating tomatoes out of her aunt’s garden when she was a kid. Curtis figures that by planting the tomatoes, he’ll show her he was listening. The tomatoes will also make it clear he’s waiting for her.
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Themes
Curtis plants beefsteak tomatoes since they’re the biggest. It doesn’t take long before he enjoys gardening, even though he’s never grown anything before. There’s something new to see every day as his plants create buds, then flowers, and finally tomatoes. An old man with a straw hat shows Curtis how to stake the tomato plants so that their vines have something to cling to, while another person tells Curtis about all the diseases that plague tomatoes. This makes Curtis worry, as he doesn’t want Lateesha to see the plants wilting or dying.
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Curtis checks on the tomatoes right after work every day. He flicks away bugs, pulls weeds, and fertilizes the plants regularly. Gradually, the tomatoes grow from tiny green marbles to big orange and red globes. Curtis keeps looking up at Lateesha’s window, waiting for her to see. But the only people who look back are the drunks that hang out on her building’s ground floor, in the boarded-up liquor store. They call Curtis a “field slave” and a “share-cropper,” and they ask how “Massa’s crops” are doing. Curtis knows he could beat the men and make them stop, but he doesn’t. That’s the point; he wants Lateesha to see that he’s not a “beast” just because he has muscles.
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Themes
Curtis also stops working out and taking off his shirt, even when it’s really hot. Girls still walk by and compliment him, but when he responds to them he always acts like they were complimenting his tomatoes. His friends start to call him Tomato, but Curtis just smiles.
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The tomatoes get as big as billiard balls. One day, Curtis discovers that his biggest tomato is gone. The next day, another one is gone. He’s angry, especially since the tomatoes weren’t even ripe yet. To guard against thieves, he puts chicken wire around the tomatoes and on top, but people can still get their hands in. Curtis can’t spend all day guarding his tomatoes, but fortunately, Royce shows up just in time.
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Themes
Curtis discovers Royce sleeping in the garden one morning on a pile of grass clippings. Royce is only 15, Black, and muscular, but his face is bruised and swollen. Royce shares that his father beat him and threw him out, so Curtis takes the boy out for breakfast. Then, they cut a deal.
Curtis finds Royce a hidden place where the police won’t see him, but that’s close to the tomatoes. He buys Royce a sleeping bag, gives him money for food, and gets him a pitchfork. Royce agrees to attack anyone who tries to steal the tomatoes with the pitchfork. To protect the tomatoes during the day, Curtis paints a sign with the words “Lateesha’s Tomatoes” and puts it by the sidewalk. He thinks that if people know that something belongs to a person, rather than the government, they’re more likely to leave it alone. One day, while Curtis waters his tomatoes, he looks up at Lateesha’s window. He can see her staring down at the sign.
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