Thorpe alternates between telling the story of the four girls she is profiling and providing the larger political context in which their stories are unfolding. For these girls, the political is personal, meaning that what is happening in the larger political arena has a direct consequence of their lives and those of their families.

For example, the murder that GómezGarcía commits at the Salon Ocampo affects the people the author is writing about. Yadira’s mother, Alma, decides to flee to Mexico rather than stand trial after being accused of stealing an identity to work because the political climate around illegal immigrants is so negative. Marisela and Yadira hope for legislation to be passed that will make their path to citizenship clear, but politics makes that an impossibility, and they are left in "limbo" (387). While white people in the book such as Luke, a fellow college student of Clara, Yadira, and Marisela, can be somewhat distanced from the news or see it as an academic exercise, the girls Thorpe profiles do not have that luxury.

In college, Marisela and her classmates make a board game that replicates the way in which Mexican immigrants try to head north looking for a better life in the United States.