Hassan, newly-arrived in the United States and feeling homesick, paints a picture at school that shows his old home in Somalia as well as the reason his family had to leave.

Twelve-year-old Rosa and thirteen-year-old Jake form an unlikely friendship as they try to survive and understand the 1912 Bread and Roses strike of mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Nineteen-year-old Nayeli becomes very aware of the lack of men in Tres Camarones after watching the movie "The Magnificent Seven" at a local theater, and comes up with a plan to travel to the U.S.--Illinois specifically--and recruit a group of men to return with her to Mexico to protect and repopulate her remote village.