First-generation immigrants are a species all their own. They wear a lot of beige, grey or brown. Colours that do not stand out. Colours that whisper, never shout.
-- Fig Tree (chapter 3)

Importance: The fig tree describes the universal sense of shyness that immigrants feel when displaced from their native countries. Language barriers are but one obstacle to immigrants' ability to feel at home in their new countries. As the fig tree puts it, feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy make it challenging for immigrants to feel empowered in their new environments.

It seemed to her, more and more, that in the end she had chosen emptiness. Nothingness. A weightless shell that still hedged her in, kept her apart from others. Yet as she went on screaming in the last hour of the last day of school, she felt something almost transcendental, as if she were not, and had never been, confined to the limits...
-- Narrator (chapter 3)