Sylvia's Garden

Set in the 1970s and 80s in the small bedroom community of Merrifield, Maryland, Sylvia’s Garden is a heartfelt novel steeped in Korean culture. Diana Yu explores the joys and sorrows that Korean families experience as they adjust to their new lives in America. Attempting to give their children better opportunities, many families immigrated to the US to escape military dictatorship and the possibility of a second invasion from the communist north. However, many families did not anticipate the difficulties they would be faced with when younger generations adopted more liberal viewpoints while older generations clung to their traditional Korean values. 


Handling issues of gender inequality, racial prejudice, and social hierarchies, Sylvia’s Garden weaves a tale of three families struggling with cultural differences. Just outside of the nation’s capital, the Kims, the Jeffersons, and the Carters wrestle with issues that both unite their lives and tear them apart.