The story begins in the early 1940s in Cupertino, California, where two families—the Japanese-American Yamaguchis and the Mexican-American Montaños—work as sharecroppers on the Yamaguchi farm. Despite cultural and language barriers, the families live in close proximity, and a secret romance blossoms between Benjamin "Ben" Montaño and Teruko "Thelma" Yamaguchi.