Project Mulberry

Silkworms are the starring role in the sericulture Wiggle project, and Julia sees her investment in the project mirrored in the worms’ life cycle. The silkworms also symbolize the immigrant experience, which is why Julia empathizes with them so much (and why only Kenny empathizes with her). When immigrants arrive in a new country, they are often in a completely foreign environment. Without the same support networks that they might have had in their homelands, immigrants must often create a life from nothing, in the hopes that this new country will provide a better life for them and their children. Likewise, the Wiggle project involves placing the silkworm eggs in a “foreign” location; the children put the eggs on top of mulberry leaves to remind them of their “natural” habitat, but the worms remain transplants. Once the eggs hatch, the worms attach themselves to the leaves as best they can, though they initially require assistance from outsiders (humans) when moving to new leaves. After they can fend for themselves, they work as hard as they can to achieve their goals—surviving, nutrition intake, and then cocooning themselves in order to transform into moths—all while being studied and documented by their equivalent of governing bodies (Patrick, Julia, and Kenny). Much like immigrants adapting to new environments, silkworms also undergo various changes before their pupae stage (mirroring the immigrant process of receiving citizenship). They then finally lay eggs in this new world that has become their home.

Julia and Kenny, as children of immigrants, are more sensitive to this process, especially without a community of fellow immigrants to support them. As Julia grows more invested in Project Mulberry, she begins to see individual character traits and physical markings rather than a homogenous mass. (Patrick, distanced by his phobia and the camera, does not.) Julia also becomes very attached to the silkworms, declaring that even though she and Patrick have been working hard on their Wiggle project, the worms have been working equally hard, believing that they’ll “get to be moths at the end of all this” (177). Patrick disagrees with this, which affects their differing levels of empathy regarding silk harvesting. Patrick, prepared by research and considering the worms “lower form[s] of life” (180), has long accepted the fatal outcome of this project. Julia, seeing the worms as individuals with goals and dreams, cannot condone their murders. Even the compromise, sacrificing five for the sake of the rest, leaves her distressed and upset. Symbolically, this suggests that while Patrick is generally supportive of Julia, there are certain aspects of her life that he, as an outsider and member of a more privileged group, will never fully understand.