The protagonist of the story is María Álvarez, a 17-year-old Colombian girl portrayed by Catalina Sandino Moreno. María works under harsh conditions at a flower plantation to support her family. Despite not loving her boyfriend and experiencing unfair treatment from her boss, María decides to leave her job and find another one, against her family’s wishes. On her journey to Bogotá in search of employment, María is offered a dangerous role as a drug mule, which involves swallowing wrapped pellets filled with drugs. In desperation, she accepts the risky offer and ingests 62 cocaine-filled pellets, traveling to New York City. She has a near-miss at US Customs, but is saved from an X-ray due to her pregnancy. Instead, she is released and sent to a hotel where the task of removing the pellets from her body awaits. The traffickers responsible for the drugs arrive to retrieve them, resorting to cutting open Lucy, a deceased fellow mule, to recover her swallowed pellets. Witnessing this brutal reality prompts María to escape from the drug trafficking cartel.
Maria’s journey mirrors that of countless other immigrants in the United States. Despite her initial lack of knowledge about the country and intentions to return to Colombia, she perseveres through hardships, both economic and related to being an undocumented worker. Through these experiences, Maria gains a greater understanding of how her actions impact others and emerges with a newfound resilience that propels her into a new life. Ultimately, Maria chooses to make the United States her home.
