In the early 1900s, Minna Goldmich, a 14-year-old peasant girl, kills a boy to keep from being brutalized and raped. Minna’s life is shattered when her family sends her away to America to save her from being killed in retribution. Alone, she survives the horrors of Ellis Island and is sent to live in the South with an older brother who puts her through nursing school. In Alabama, she soon becomes enmeshed in a world of blatant racism. Later, as a visiting nurse, she is caught up in New York’s healthcare system and works to help the sick and disadvantaged in Harlem. Her solution to the chaos around her? She becomes a part of the city’s Red Movement and joins its fight against the political powers that squashed the poorest of the poor. Her entire life was one of upheaval, lost love, and activism. Through her eyes we see the crush of a brutal 20th century—Sacco & Vanzetti, the Spanish Civil War, WWII, The Holocaust, the Rosenbergs, McCarthyism, and Vietnam.