Even though life is hard, thirteen-year-old Lupita always tells her family that things will get better tomorrow, mañana. When her father dies in a fishing accident, she and her older brother Salvador leave Mexico to find work in the United States. Their journey by foot leads to backbreaking work, shock when Salvador abandons Lupita, and constant fear of la migra (U.S. immigration police). Beatty, who is not of the same background as her characters, relied on interviews with Mexican immigrants to cull the details of Lupita's story. While this revelatory view of the lives of illegal immigrants to the U.S resonates strongly with current conditions, some elements of the story may seem judgmental to contemporary eyes.

Twelve-year-old Binnie, whose mother runs a company boarding house in Lowell, Massachusetts, begins working in a textile mill and is caught up in the 1836 strike of women workers.