The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans [Hardcover]

Patricia Klindienst (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2006

Why have we tamed the history of gardening in America? Patricia Klindienst asks in The Earth Knows My Name. We are a democracy of gardeners yet, with few exceptions, the garden is presented as the province of the privileged and the white. Garden writing tends to exclude the stories of the ethnic peoples who have shaped our landscape for centuries. As a result, the idea of the garden has been stripped of its cultural weight.

The Earth Knows My Name speaks directly to this gap in our understanding, exploring the deeper implications of what it means to cultivate a garden and to grow one's own food.

The fifteen gardens presented in The Earth Knows My Name have all been fashioned by people usually thought of as other Americans: Native Americans, immigrants, and ethnic peoples who were here long before our national boundaries were drawn, including Hispanics of the Southwest, descended from the Conquistadors, and Gullah gardeners of South Carolina, descendants of West African slaves. All of these gardeners straddle two cultures-mainstream America and their culture of origin. Their stewardship of the land is an expression of the desire to preserve their heritage against all that threatens it. And so each garden becomes an island of hope and offers a model, on a truly sustainable scale, of a restorative ecology that renders justice to both the land and the people who cultivate it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though Klindienst imposes a strong philosophical structure on the narratives in this poetic collection, her political interpretations come second to the beauty and humor in what is essentially a set of portraits of both American gardens and gardeners. Woven into these stories are wide-ranging details of agricultural history: how to make blue corn piki bread, how the injustice of post-emancipation land sales affected one farmer, the fragrance of the sweet-sticky-pumpkin flower brought by refugees from Cambodia. Klindienst's writing shines when recounting her conversations with farmers, but her analysis of "hunger for community" and how a "garden can be a powerful expression of resistance" feels awkward. Luckily, between the prologue and the epilogue, Klindienst provides an unpretentious and touching tour of the increasingly rare corners of the country where land is worked by friendly locals who know the differences between five types of basil and can jaw for hours about plants, soil and the weather: "Oh golly let me see. It would be the bush beans," says one woman when asked about the type of seed she's been saving the longest (70 years, in this case). This book's broad scope touches on the best of nature writing, singing the rhythm of growth in both plants and people.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Klindienst celebrates gardens created by immigrants who resisted the intense pressure to assimilate into mainstream American society, in a lyrical account of her three-year journey to collect the stories of ethnic Americans for whom gardening is tantamount to cultural endurance. Survivors of the Pol Pot regime fled the killing fields of Cambodia for the healing fields of New England, while the Yankee inheritor of land wrested generations ago from Native Americans during the infamous Pequot Massacre of 1637 atones for that atrocity through the simple act of sharing seeds of corn with the tribe's descendants. Klindienst profiles 15 valiant and thoughtful gardeners intent on preserving their native birthright and on restoring and protecting their adopted land, individuals and families evincing a stewardship that not only resists cultural absorption but also sustains an ecological imperative. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807085626
• ISBN-13: 978-0807085622
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,284,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Gem, May 25, 2006

By 

Mark Demasi (Vermont, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans (Hardcover)

This wonderful book will edify and inspire you. It is the individual stories of several gardeners from as many parts of the world who manage to communicate with the earth wherever they find themselves. Place a seed in fertile soil and predictable things happen no matter what your language or station in life. Through the stories of these hard-working, thoughtful people, we are reminded of what is truly important in life - family, community, our food and its source. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Studs Terkel of Gardening, September 13, 2006

By 

Melissa A. Bartell "MissMelysse" (DFW, TX, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans (Hardcover)

In the early 1970's Studs Terkel traveled across the country interviewing people about their work, and eventually compiled the interviews into the book Working. In the early 2000's, Patricia Klindienst took a similar approach, traveling around the USA to interview ethnic gardeners, immigrants who maintain their cultural identity through their connection to the earth.

While The Earth Knows My Name will never be a musical, it is a marvellous testament to the importance of earth and water, seed and plant, and in sustaining not just our ethnic roots, but also our whole selves. Her words bring to life the feeling of warm sun on your back while you plant corn, or crisp autumn mornings harvesting beans. She lets you smell the scent of flowers, but also taste the flavor of language, in her profiles of 15 gardeners.

This book is well written, it is poignant, and it is gently honest, with the author's love of gardening, and sincere respect for her subjects masking the inevitable political undercurrents.

My only complaint is that there should have been more pictures - I craved a coffee-table presentation, with Klindienst's words matched to lush photographs.

But maybe the mind's eye is the better viewing choice. Buy the book, and decide for yourself. Better yet, buy the book, and plant a garden.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wanted more, August 4, 2006

By 

Strega "Strega" (MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans (Hardcover)

I would have purchased this book even if I did not know some of the people and places in this book. Patricia's material and writing are inspirational not just for gardeners but for anyone who is interested in where their food originates. The diversity of the gardens and gardeners made me realize again, the necessity of supporting our local growers. My only complaint is that I wanted more and found myself rationing my chapters. Hopefully there will be a sequel to include the gardens she omitted. I strongly recommend this book. Makes a great gift.