American Soil: Minari and The Grapes of Wrath

Written by Abbey Delk 

      Minari, written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, follows the story of South Korean immigrants who relocate from California to rural Arkansas in the hopes of operating a small farm and improving their circumstances. 

The Yi family settles on new land in the hopes that they can build a new, more prosperous life as farmers in Arkansas. “Daddy’s going to make a big garden,” Steven Yeun’s character tells his two children, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the whole of the green field before them. The promise of prosperity seems to linger just below the topsoil, waiting to be dug up and enjoyed. 

But it becomes clear that this milk and honey promise of the land will be harder than anticipated for the Yi family to attain. Jacob Yi, the patriarch of the family, tries to cut corners on the costs of planting and tending his first crop by digging his own well and waterline in the field. Unfortunately, his well runs dry, and his Garden of Eden begins to wilt. 

Watching Jacob crouch in the dry soil of his withering fields and survey the slow decline of his crop, the viewer cannot help but connect his expression of disappointment and apprehension to scenes penned decades before in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Both tales feature a family tested against forces largely outside of their control, learning to cope with an unfamiliar life in an unfamiliar (and often unfriendly) place. The Joad family is ostracized and mistreated as they travel through California, desperate for a chance at steady work and enough income to make a new home and meet their basic needs. The Yi family, by contrast, has found a new home but struggles to find a sense of belonging. Their identity as South Korean immigrants adds a whole new dimension to the experience of trying to find belonging and prosperity that Steinbeck’s novel is unable to capture with its cast of white characters. 

In Minari, Chung includes scenes at the local church, where it is obvious that the Yi family is the only Korean American family living in the town. While they are not met with outright hostility, there is a prevailing sense that they are always slightly out of place. This is felt most acutely by the youngest member of the family David. He resents his Korean grandmother for her inability to conform to his understanding of what a grandmother should be. He doesn’t like the Korean medicinal drink she makes him drink each morning. He doesn’t like the way she smells. David is clearly caught between two worlds: the homeland his parents and grandmother have left behind and the rural American landscape that feels somehow more foreign. 

Both tales represent critiques of the American Dream. Minari ends in fire, and Grapes of Wrath ends in a great and devastating flood. The final moments of both stories show a family that has survived unimaginable pain and destruction. But while Steinbeck’s ending arguably focuses on the urgency for the Oakies of the Great Depression to extend their familial care and support beyond their bloodlines, Chung’s story end opts for a message of cherishing one’s cultural roots. Minari translates to “water celery.” In the first half of the film, David’s grandmother takes him to a creek to plant it, infusing a small part of her former life in Korea into the wilderness of Arkansas. At the end of the film, David and Jacob harvest the minari together. When all other avenues of success have proved fruitless and the crops have wilted and burned, the Yi family can still find hope in the cultural heritage and identity that unites them. Chung’s film perhaps argues that the American dream is not to abandon your past life to fit the mold of American life but to embrace every aspect of your identity.