Kate's father, a lawyer and a Hawaiian living in California, decides to return to Hawaii to help with the legal fight for Hawaiian sovereignty, and Kate, a rather spoiled upper-middle-class twelve-year-old, hates the very thought of interrupting her comfortable life. She had visited the islands, and her relatives there, only once, and didn't find it very pleasant. In Hawaii, Kate, who looks like her European mother, encounters discrimination and a different way of life, made more difficult by the arguments between her moderate father and her radical uncle about Hawaiian sovereignty. She finds new ways to connect with her family and their heritage when she joins a hula troop that is chosen to perform in a sovereignty demonstration and in a famous all-island festival.
