Uprooted

Using a blend of nature writing, reporting, and poignant personal narrative, this debut memoir explores how interaction with the natural world—namely, foraging, both literally and metaphorically—has the power to vitalize and restore our lives, bolster resilience, and kindle joy.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, housebound with her young twins, husband, and elderly mother, Vanessa Hua escapes her dread by fleeing into the oak-studded hills east of Berkeley. In a clearing, the award-winning journalist and novelist encounters an unfamiliar plant—miner’s lettuce—the parasol‑shaped leaf of Claytonia perfoliata inviting both curiosity and fear. Here, her journey into the world of foraging begins.

With her family, Hua finds abundance in overlooked places: bay nuts scattered along the road and chanterelles erupting in a damp forest. Against a landscape marked by migration, colonialism, capitalism, and climate change, she examines who gets to feel safe outdoors, how immigration and displacement shape ideas of what is native, and how to harvest with reciprocity and respect.

Weaving together cultural and natural history, she traces her immigrant Chinese family’s journey and the daily labor of care, tending to illness, aging, and loss. Foraging renews her sense of place, kindles joy, and attunes her to the seasons of life. Deeply researched, tender, and resonant, Uprooted is a luminous meditation on resilience—how we survive, how we adapt, and how, even amid upheaval, we find our way home.