Synopses & Reviews
Patricia Klindienst crossed the country to write this book, inspired by a torn and faded photograph that shed new light on the story of her Italian immigrant family's struggle to adapt to America. She gathered the stories of urban, suburban, and rural gardens created by people rarely presented in books about American gardens: Native Americans, immigrants from across Asia and Europe, and ethnic peoples who were here long before our national boundaries were drawn—including Hispanics of the Southwest, whose ancestors followed the Conquistadors into the Rio Grande Valley, and Gullah gardeners of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, descendants of African slaves.
As we lose our connection to the soil, we no longer understand the relationship between food and a sense of belonging to a place and a people. In The Earth Knows My Name, Klindienst offers a lyrical exploration of how the making of gardens and the growing of food help ethnic and immigrant Americans maintain and transmit their cultural heritage while they put roots down in American soil. Through their work on the land, these gardeners revive cultures in danger of being lost. Through the vegetables, fruits, and flowers they produce, they share their culture with their larger communities. And in their reverent use of natural resources they keep alive a relationship to the land all but lost to mainstream American culture.
With eloquence and passion, blending oral history and vivid description, Klindienst has created a book that offers a fresh and original way to understand food, gardening, and ethnic culture in America. In this book, each garden becomes an island of hope and offers us a model, on a sustainable scale, of a truly restorative ecology.
Review
"This book's broad scope touches on the best of nature writing, singing the rhythm of growth in both plants and people."
Review
This books broad scope touches on the best of nature writing, singing the rhythm of growth in both plants and people.” Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
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 ones 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.
Patricia Klindienst is a master gardener and an award-winning writing teacher. She lives and gardens in Guilford, Connecticut. This is her first book.
Synopsis
Inspired by her own familys immigrant history, Patricia Klindienst traveled the country, gathering stories of urban, suburban, and rural gardens created by people rarely presented in books about American gardens: Native Americans, immigrants from across Asia and Europe, and ethnic peoples who were here long before our national boundaries were drawn. In The Earth Knows My Name, she writes about the beautiful gardens she discovered, each one an island of hope, offering us a modelon a sustainable scaleof a truly restorative ecology.
A moving tribute to those who keep the ancient love of the land in their hearts, and who stand up to the giants of agrobusiness in their fight to preserve their cultural heritage.” Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, UN Messenger of Peace, and author of Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating
Carefully weaving the threads of the cultures that were here before with those that came later, Klindienst makes her case for the deep, life-giving integrity of the earth . . . This is a poignant book that shows, without undue sentimentality, the underlying element we all share and can bring to life with our hands.” Edie Clark, Orion
Patricia Klindienst is a master gardener and an award-winning scholar and teacher. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut, and teaches creative writing each summer at Yale University.
About the Author
Patricia Klindienst is a master gardener and an award-winning scholar and teacher. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut, and teaches creative writing each summer at Yale University.