Project Mulberry

“Patrick did the reading part, the research [for projects]. I did the hands-on stuff—whatever needed to be cut and pasted or built or painted or sewn. [...] Sometimes I’d do some of the reading, and Patrick would help with the making part. But we had our main jobs, and it suited us both.”

An introduction to the theme of Types of Productivity/Skill Sets, this quote showcases Patrick’s and Julia’s individual strengths. Patrick is a voracious bookworm and can provide background knowledge and context on many issues, such as Mrs. Song’s prejudices. Julia’s craftsmanship shines through her embroidery, which allows her to form a connection with her Korean heritage. At the same time, her hands-on observations of and care for the silkworms allow her to empathize with them later in the novel.

“This [a bite of kimchee with rice] is their routine whenever Patrick leaves our house at dinnertime. We have rice and kimchee for dinner almost every night, no matter what the main course is, and my mom always gives Patrick a bite as he goes out the door.”

Kimchi is not only one of Patrick’s favorite foods but also one of the factors that cemented his friendship with Julia. Therefore, kimchi represents harmony, as Patrick doesn’t stop for his customary bite of kimchi when he is upset or when he and Julia are fighting.

“Silkworms just didn’t seem like a good Wiggle project to me. They didn’t fit into the big-red-barn picture. They were too…too…Too Korean. I wanted a nice, normal, All-American, red-white-and-blue kind of project.”

Although Julia has had negative experiences regarding her Korean identity before, she had a more diverse support system at the time. In Plainfield, her Asian identity sticks out. She becomes increasingly sensitive about displaying her Korean culture and prefers to assimilate into white culture instead.

“She’d also brought the embroidered picture from her room. Now she [Mrs. Song] took the frame and started undoing the catches at the back. […] The back side looked exactly the same as the front. There wasn’t a single knot or loose thread anywhere. [...] He [Patrick] looked at it for about half a second. ‘Pretty,’ he said, and turned back to the screen.

He didn’t get it.”

Julia finds her connection to her heritage through Korean embroidery; her love of needlework piques her interest, and the symmetry of the stitches fascinates her. Learning this technique from her mother reinforces Sustainability of Nature and Knowledge—the passing down of heritage and traditions through generations to keep them alive. This scene also highlights the differences between Julia and Patrick; for all that he loves Korean food, he is oblivious to other aspects of Korean culture, such as embroidery.

“In fact, he [Mr. Maxwell] seemed to think it was a great idea. ‘A first for me,’ he said. ‘Never had anyone do a silkworm project before. It’ll be unique. Good job, kids.’”

Despite Julia’s misgivings, Mr. Maxwell okays their silkworm project and encourages their “unique” idea. Julia ponders his words throughout the novel. To Americans, sericulture is different and unique—foreign—feeding Julia’s insecurities about the project being too Korean. However, she wonders how “unique” it really is when sericulture has been part of Korea’s culture for centuries.

“So I sort of figured it out: My mom thought Mrs. Roberts might not be a good teacher, because she was black. That made things hard in a different way. [...] I hated thinking of her as someone who might be prejudiced against black people.”

Julia is repeatedly surprised that people of color can experience prejudice from and exhibit prejudice toward other POC. Julia is not prejudiced against Black people; Mrs. Roberts was her favorite teacher. However, she is not immune from stereotyping, as she assumes Mr. Dixon is white. As Julia is close with her family, the thought that her mother might have such prejudices is hard to face.

“‘The Korean War. […] The only black people in Korea back then were American soldiers,’ he [Patrick] went on. ‘Maybe your mom is sort of scared of black people because they make her think of war and battles and stuff.’

[...]

So Patrick was right about the soldiers. And my dad didn’t seem to care what color people were, as long as they were nice. But my mom…Well, maybe she’d been unlucky and had never met a nice soldier.”

Though the novel gives no direct reason for Mrs. Song’s prejudices, Patrick suggests one plausible answer (see the Korean War section above). Julia’s father’s attitude highlights the complexity of race/ethnicity perception, as one person’s views don’t necessarily reflect the views of an entire group.

“He [Mr. Dixon] smiled and shook his head. ‘I beg your pardon. It’s just that when I talked to this young lady on the phone’—he nodded at me—‘I was expecting white people.’

My mouth fell open. I wanted to laugh, even though there was nothing really funny about what he’d said. Here I’d been thinking he was a white guy, and I hadn’t said anything one way or the other to my mom, but I was sure she assumed he was white, too, and then he turned out to be black, and there he was thinking we would be white, but we were Asian, except for Patrick—”

Julia is taken aback that people of color can have mistaken assumptions about race. The episode highlights subtle, everyday forms of cultural expression, such as diction and even names (Julia versus “June” versus Jung-sook) that can code for (assumed) race/ethnicity. Mr. Dixon and Julia both perceiving the other as white demonstrates the pervasiveness of whiteness as a “default” and the pressure this creates for people of other races/ethnicities to assimilate.

“In other words, it [the mulberry tree] looked like any old tree.

I was a tiny bit disappointed. And then I felt stupid for feeling disappointed— [...] what had I expected, gold leaves and silver bark and rubies for berries?

‘It was here when I moved in fifteen years ago,’ Mr. Dixon said. ‘But nobody had taken care of it, so it was pretty scrawny. Looked more like a bush than a tree—they get that way if you don’t prune them.’”

The mulberry tree symbolizes diversity in its connection to both Korean sericulture and Mr. Dixon. While the long search for the tree partially explains Julia’s exaggerated expectations, Julia’s reaction also hints at another implication: Foreign people, culture, and objects are often exoticized, setting them apart from what is considered ordinary. In a heterogenous country like the United States, diversity—like the mulberry tree—requires nurturing.

“‘Anyone can stick a needle in and out,’ she [Mrs. Song] said. ‘If you want to get really good at embroidery, it’s the little things that count. Because all those little things go together, to make the big picture.’”

Embroidery, like any task, may seem simple to do, but takes practice to achieve quality. Like many other actions in the story—raising the silkworms, befriending others, resisting prejudice—the end result comes from many small, repeated steps that build toward the desired outcome. Progress is not always obvious until viewed from a distance.

“‘Good,’ she [Mrs. Song] said. ‘Just get what you need without a fuss, okay? I don’t want you bothering him.’

Her perfect face.

Maybe she really did want to make sure we didn’t disturb Mr. Dixon.

Or maybe she just didn’t want us spending much time with him.

I hoped it was the first reason, but because of her perfect face, I wasn’t sure.

I hated not being sure.”

Prejudice can be hard to identify because it involves thoughts, not actions (as in discrimination). Julia struggles with this question constantly, not just because it is difficult to answer, but also because humans are complex people; even with good intentions, they are flawed and can make mistakes.

“Patrick sighed. […] ‘Besides, it’s weird with little brothers—I guess it’s easier to be nice to someone else’s.’”

Julia is shocked when Kenny responds positively to Patrick’s invitation to join the project. This reflects the nature of relationships. As siblings, Kenny and Julia fight more than either of them does with Patrick, a guest. Julia’s closeness to Patrick in age and friendship means she also clashes with him more than he does with Kenny, who is younger and has a more distant relationship with Patrick.

“I liked the idea of the cycle—the cows, then the chickens, then the sheep, and starting all over again. For some reason it made me think of our worms. Egg, then worm, then cocoon, then moth, and back to egg again.”

Mr. Maxwell introduces the concept of sustainability during the Wiggle field trip to his farm. Sustainable farming is better for the environment and can continue indefinitely. Julia recalls this as she thinks of the silkworm life cycle, but sustainability is reflected in her community too. The project exists because members of her community helped put it together, creating connections that her and Patrick’s interactions sustain.

“My mom had assumed things about my teacher Mrs. Roberts because she was black. Mr. Dixon assumed my family would like peppers because we were Chinese. And I assumed that Mr. Dixon—somebody black, somebody who probably had a lot of experience with racism—would never make a mistake like that. […] So in a way, it didn’t matter whether what you were thinking was good or bad. Not knowing. And not knowing—or caring—that you didn’t know. And not bothering to find out because you didn’t know you didn’t know. That was the problem.”

Julia reaches an important conclusion about racism and prejudice. No matter how well-intentioned, not seeking out knowledge and operating only on assumptions will perpetuate the problem, not solve it. Everyone is susceptible to this mistake, so education and solidarity become Julia’s solution.

“Patrick was grinning. ‘Don’t you see? We take the worm poop to Mr. Dixon’s and use it to fertilize his mulberry tree! It’s not a big fancy cycle like Mr. Maxwell’s, but it’s still a cycle, and this way the worms and the tree are sustaining each other.’”

Inspired by Mr. Maxwell, Patrick incorporates sustainability into Project Mulberry. Although the strategy has mixed results, they achieve a different kind of sustainability by letting most of the silkworms become adult moths and lay eggs. Learning sericulture from Mrs. Song and presenting their experience at the state fair are also examples of sustainability, as Patrick and Julia continue the cycle of passing down traditions.

“I wondered if thinking about this race stuff too much made you see it in places where it didn’t exist. But then I wondered the opposite: Maybe it existed all the time, and you only saw it if you were really thinking about it?”

Julia reaches another important conclusion about the systemic nature of racism and prejudice; these problems are always there, but not everyone is paying attention. Julia’s assumption about Mr. Dixon and his assumptions about her are one result of this—Mrs. Song’s prejudice another. Addressing this systemic problem requires conscious, intentional action.

“Kenny ignored me. The snotbrain. He looked at Patrick. ‘Just put one in a little jar,’ Kenny said. ‘That way you could film it through the glass.’”

While he is neither a bookworm like Patrick nor a craftsperson like Julia, Kenny has an important strength: observing the obvious. Kenny’s position as an outsider allows him to see the bigger picture. He provides key suggestions and solutions that keep the project going.

“I had known right away that it was perfect. There was just something so completely right about it. It wasn’t American, like the flag—but it wasn’t Korean, either. Or maybe it was both?”

Julia’s embroidery design reflects her solution to her identity insecurities. Rather than choosing from a binary, she finds a third path: creating something new and truly unique, rather than merely “new to someone else.” This demonstrates Julia’s imagination: Rather than borrowing a common symbol like the flag, she creates her own design.

“Mr. Maxwell spread out his hands in sort of a shrug. ‘Nowadays, most people get meat already cut up and wrapped in nice neat plastic packages. They don’t really want to be reminded that it came from a living, breathing animal. [...] I think it’s important not to forget. To feel responsibility for what we eat, and to raise farm animals with respect for their lives. That’s why I work the way I do. And that’s also why I run the Wiggle Club. I want at least a few kids to learn some of these things, and think about them, and maybe appreciate farming a little more.’”

The Wiggle Club reminds children of the importance of farming and the food they eat. Patrick and Julia doubly appreciate this as they harvest silk from the silkworms and care for the worms as individuals. Julia learns this more abstractly as she begins to value her Korean heritage and as both she and Patrick develop stronger bonds within their community.

“‘Honestly, Jules, I’ve always thought it was so cool that your family has all this Korean stuff. It makes things much more interesting. Not like my family. We’re just plain old nothing American.’

I thought about that for a second. ‘Patrick, that can’t be right. Your family must have come from somewhere else, even if it was ages ago. I mean, everyone comes from somewhere else. Even the Native Americans came from Asia, remember?’”

Patrick’s sentiment is well-intentioned; as an ally, he constantly uplifts, values, and encourages Korean culture. However, white privilege sometimes misleads him, as in his misconception that (white) Americans have no culture and that his family has been in the United States indefinitely. Julia corrects him, noting that Americans do have diverse cultures and that no one, even Indigenous Americans, has always lived in America. Immigration and migration are a constant occurrence, so everyone comes from somewhere.

“Kenny beamed as he took the two coins. ‘Julia, you know Connecticut is my favorite quarter,’ he said.”

As the story climaxes, Kenny reveals the Connecticut quarter, symbolizing the unification of the Project Mulberry team. He gifts his quarter to Julia as consolation while the dead pupae are harvested for silk; Kenny is the only one to empathize as she mourns their loss. Though Kenny allies with Patrick early in the story, his relationship with Julia remains stormy until the end. His connection with her, the final link to unify the group, comes with the quarter. The fact that Connecticut is his favorite quarter (it is also Julia’s and Patrick’s favorite) further cements their new bond.

“I kept thinking while I was embroidering how each of the stages had a special meaning for me. The egg—that was like my mom giving us the idea. The smallest caterpillar, barely a little black squiggle, kind of weak and wimpy-looking—that was when I was trying to get out of doing the project. The medium-sized caterpillar was when I’d decided we should go ahead, but I still wasn’t crazy about it. And the biggest caterpillar showed how I’d gotten to love them all. Around the caterpillars I embroidered two mulberry leaves, which was my way of giving credit to Mr. Dixon for his help. [...] I thought of the moth as both the end and the beginning—the end of our project but the beginning of a whole new cycle. So if the moth was like the future, would the eggs be the past? Maybe it didn’t start with my mom giving us the idea. Maybe it went all the way back to her grandmother, raising silkworms in Korea [...].”

For Julia, the silkworm life cycle reflects her own growing investment in the project. More abstractly, it reflects the cycles of community and sustainability, as she reflects on the traditions of sericulture and embroidery and how they are passed down through generations. Even more abstractly, the silkworms demonstrate the immigrant experience, as their hard work in a new environment results in new life, just as Julia’s and Kenny’s lives are the result of their parents’ immigration to the United States.

“On the back there were some stitches and loops of thread where there shouldn’t have been. But I was going to keep practicing. One of these years, I promised myself, I’d enter a project that looked exactly the same on both sides, the way they’d done it in old-time Korea, and I’d display it between two pieces of glass so you could see what I’d done, and the judges would be blown away. Secretly, though, I liked that the underneath of my embroidery was kind of messy. I thought all those knots and loops showed how much work I’d done.”

While Julia is a novice at embroidery, she appreciates what she has learned and knows how much is left to discover. This reflects her stance towards her Korean heritage; she accepts and values it more than before, but it too is a work in progress. Still, she has learned a lot, and it shows.