In 1910 the Cohen family, in search of the Golden Medina, undertakes a dangerous journey from Russia to the United States, where the new world exposes family secrets, cultural conflicts, the corruption of the American Dream, and love's divides.

Traveling in steerage to Ellis Island, the family endures the poverty and dirt of New York City and retreats to a farm in southern New Jersey--to find not the agricultural Eden they were promised, but Babylon. Told in several voices, this tale bears witness to a new generation learning to find hope in a land that often sacrifices human decency for profit and greed.