"In 1920s Southern California, Lupita Comacho leaves Mexico and settles not far from the border--and so begins the journey of an American family through three generations: from fish cannery jobs and halting English, to the first-generation's striving for assimilation, complete with dreams of kidney-shaped inground pools, then on to the wide-open lives of the grandchildren: a karaoke barkeep, twin female wrestling champs, a beauty who applies makeup even in the mental hospital. While Lupita adjusts to her new country, her American-born children must make peace with lives that never quite match the pages of Ladies Home Journal. Finally, though distanced from their ancestors' culture and freed from the stigma of accented English, Lupita's grandchildren discover that they somehow remain set apart. In fifteen exquisitely human stories, these family members face progress and failure against the backdrop of each new generation--bound together, and to us all, by the search for a place in this world."--