As the book opens, Lola is given with a school assignment: she has to a draw a picture of her "first country," the one she lived in before she came to the United States. While her classmates all readily remember where they came from, she left the Island when she was just a baby. She doesn´t remember a thing! With the encouragement of her teacher, Lola asks the people in her neighborhood about what they remember. Bats with wings as big as blankets, more music than air, and mangoes that make you cry: one by one, Lola gathers details for her drawing.
But why did they leave, then, if the Island was so wonderful? One of Lola´s neighbors speaks of a "monster" that terrorized the island for over 30 years. An allusion to dictator Rafael Trujillo, Díaz´s book does not shy away from the political realities that drive immigration. According to Díaz, children are able to hold and understand "complex, painful truths," such as, for example, the realities behind their own immigration stories.