Danny and his Vietnamese family comes to America illegally by boat, when he was eight years old. He goes to school and learns how to talk and to interact like other children. He does this cautiously because his family is afraid of getting sent back to Vietnam. His family still celebrates their family customs and belief with the others who came with them, and some new friends. They like to celebrate their culture even though they had such a challenging time in Vietnam.
Danny starts to correlate with people when he starts to go to high school. He is a extremely smart guy with the help of his best friend Calvin. In the book the author shows us how quite Danny used to be until he notices girls. She shows us this because he barely ever talks and always sits in the back of the classroom. He starts to demonstrate his emotions when he starts to like a girl named Tiffany. Tiffany's brother is a part of a gang called the Cobra's. The gang starts vandalizing different places, such as Danny's Uncle's store.
Sang Lee, Danny's cousin comes to America after being let out of a camp. While in camp he meets this boy who has a gang in the same town as Danny's family. He gets tied up between his family and new friends. He starts to get into mischief, which is not honorable in his family. He starts to gamble and tries to stop, but can not. In trying to stop and getting Danny more involved with Tiffany he finds himself in bunch of danger. He was in so much trouble he is beaten to death by the Cobra's. Danny's family decides to move to a safer environment to start a new life.
In this story Danny is trying to help