In a California courtroom, seventeen-year-old Nou Lee reels with what she is about to do. What she must do to survive. She reflects on the splintered path that led to this moment, beginning twelve years ago in 1978, when her Hmong family escaped from Laos after the Communist takeover. The Lees travel to a squalid refugee camp in Thailand then a new life in the U.S. Family members struggle to survive in a strange foreign land, haunted by the scars of war and loss of family.