I found it very interesting the parallel between aliens looking for a home planet and Tip and Lucy being immigrants from Barbados trying to settle into their own new home in New York City.
Yeah, we really wanted to explore all the different ways that the concept of home works. Home can be a place and you can move to a new home, as Lucy and Tip did, and start a new life in a new country. But one idea of home are the faces around you, the people you love and the people that support you.
And just the idea that the Boov are crossing the galaxy looking for a home and are so presumptuous to think they'd be good for humans, that this is a lovely invasion and a positive thing, which they just justify for their need for a new home.
That idea that you can invade a place, displace its inhabitants and actually have a positive impact isn't exactly foreign on Earth.
I think a lot of adults will watch it and they'll know that European history throughout the age of exploration was one native culture after the other being told, "Oh, we'll be good for you, we'll bring you things. Our technology and our culture and our religion is better." So there's that not-too-subtle note that the Boov really selfishly think that by stealing our planet they're doing us a favor.
Could I be so bold as to label "Home" an immigrant story?
I don't think that's a bad label at all. I think an immigrant story can be a very large story, and that this one is very large. When you think about an immigrant story it's fundamentally about starting over with new prospects and new friends and new family and trying to build a better life. Even though they're selfish about it, that's really all the Boov are trying to do. And it's certainly what Lucy and Tip tried to do in moving to the States.
When you're an immigrant, you're a stranger in a strange land and all the faces you see are new faces and that's true for both of our big characters.