1897, Sicily, Italy. Hunger. Mafia. Unemployment. Divided families. Towns like Camporeale become ghost towns as the desperate migrate to the New World in search of their dreams. Twelve-year-old Maria Liotta and nineteen-year-old Baldassare Licata travel among them. Will America give Maria and her family hope? Will she find her father? Will Baldassare find the protection he seeks from the mafia? Each on their own journeys, they encounter opposition from the padrone, the American school, and a system that seeks to exploit the vulnerable for a quick profit. They face personal betrayal, the violence of the Mano Nera in the New World, moral decisions, and are held down by the ways of the Old World. Travel back to the turn of the century to discover the life faced by Sicilian immigrants in New York and discover how Maria and Baldassare join together with their siblings, Gaetana and Domenico, to overcome the obstacles attempting to keep them down.