Twelve-year-old Yasmeen Khoury is unhappy that her family has moved from Detroit to San Antonio, Texas, leaving her friends and Arab Christian community behind; from the very first day at school Yasmeen feels completely isolated and out of place, but sheslowly makes friends with a Mexican boy, Carlos, and her Jewish neighbor, Ayelet Cohen, although she feels like she has to hide these friendships, especially from her Palestinian father, a native of Jerusalem--more than anything Yasmeen just wants to be American but it seems like she can not escape the ethnic tensions that swirl around her.