Joseph Moshev, a seventeen-year-old Russian Jewish immigrant, comes to America alone in 1903, looking for streets paved with gold. Instead, he finds a hard life awaits him as he fights to survive and fulfill his ambition of being a somebody. He has been preceded a decade before by his cousin Naomi Moshev, sixteen in 1903, who wants a career in show business. Can these two willful teenagers satisfy their vast ambitions in an ever-changing America?