In June of 1870, seventy-five Chinese laborers arrived in North Adams, Massachusetts, to work for Calvin Sampson, one of the biggest industrialists in that busy factory town. Except for the foreman, the Chinese didn't speak English. They didn't know they were strikebreakers. The eldest of them was twenty-two. When Sampson's wife, Julia, gives birth to a mixed-race baby, the infant becomes a lightning rod for identity conflicts, alienation, and exile.