In 1958, Katey Miller (Romola Garai), her parents (Sela Ward and John Slattery), and her younger sister Susie (Mika Boorem) arrive in Cuba during the Cuban revolution. A self-described bookworm, Katey is not very happy about having to move to a different country during her senior year of high school, as she had been planning to attend Radcliffe College, although the rest of her family seem extremely pleased to be in Cuba.