After a day of picking cotton in late 1860, Ella May, a young slave, joins her friends Bobby and Sue at their second job of listening outside the windows of their master's house for useful information.
Twelve-year-old Lee, an orphan, reluctantly leaves his grandparents in China for the long sea voyage to San Francisco, where he and other immigrants undergo examinations at Angel Island Immigration Station.
While traveling along the Oregon Trail, ten-year-old Cora and her newborn baby sister suffer the loss of their mother and are separated, but Cora stitches a book to tell the dark-eyed baby of their journey and family.