Serafina an illegal migrant worker living in California when the police catch her is sent back to Mexico--without her 3 year old daughter. Twelve years later with a pair of silver barretts her only clue to her daughter, Serafina begins a harrowing journey back across the border to find her daughter.
Serafina, a fifteen-year-old, Mexican Indian girl, is desperate to leave her impoverished village in Mexico, but after she illegally emigrates to California, she learns that life is hard no matter where she lives.
Moinette, a mixed-race child born into slavery on a Louisiana plantation, gains an education by listening to the lessons given her young mistress, and when she is sold and separated from her beloved mother at the age of fourteen, she immediately begins to make plans to gain her freedom.
The story of Darnell Tucker, a black firefighter and workingman trying to work the toughest turf of all: the straight and narrow. As his friends disappear around him, Darnell struggles to establish his own business, facing a thousand midnights before he is home free, with a job that supports his young family.
When Marietta's sons, Nate and Calvin, gravitate to football, the family's fortunes take a distinct turn for the better in the promised land of California.
Marietta Cook, having deliberately isolated herself from the traditional women of her birthplace in the Gullah-speaking Low Country of South Carolina, becomes even more distanced after the birth of her twin sons, making them the focus of her life until their prowess on the football field allows her to see to herself.
