Vishnu (Jimi Mistry), his wife Meena (Ritu Singh Pande), and their young daughter Reshma have joined with their Indian friends in a celebration of Diwali, the five-day Hindu Festival of Lights. When their poor neighbors are attacked and beaten in the middle of the night by members of the Guyana militia, Vishnu and Meena realize that raising their daughter in such a violent place is no longer viable. But when the couple apply for entry into the United States, Vishnu is denied a visa; he has to stay in Guyana while Meena and Reshma are go to America.

In New York, mother and daughter stay with her brother. Meena lands a cleaning job at a company owned by Adam (Aidan Quinn), an Irish entrepreneur who tells her that he started out in a menial job just like her and was able to fulfill the American dream of success. Meena is not too sure of that but 15 years go by and she decides to marry Adam who has a young daughter.

Reshma (Melinda Shankar) has not handled assimilation very well. She misses her father and fights constantly with her mother. Her grades are poor and she forges a release form so she can go on a senior trip to secretly make-out with her boyfriend. When Reshma and her mother sever their relationship, she finds a surrogate family from Guyana who treat her as one of their own. Eventually learning that her father has been in prison for years, she decides to take things into her own hands and make contact with him.

Writer and director Sundell Presad vividly conveys the angst and the terrors which send immigrants to American shores and the struggles many of these conflicted people have as they try to make a success of their lives here while remaining homesick for those they left behind. It is not an easy journey as Meena and Reshma discover.

Where and When?