Ten-year-old Cracker Willie, an American-born Lebanese boy, has spent his young life trying-and failing-to find acceptance among white society. Isolated and aching for belonging, he turns toward the only community that seems willing to open its doors: the African-American streets of Liberty City.

But acceptance comes with a price. Before he can be considered one of them, Willie must survive the brutal initiation of neighborhood life-fistfights he cannot win, violence he cannot escape, and tragedies no child should witness. Against all odds, he endures.

Ignoring his father's warnings to "stay with his own kind," Willie chooses to live in Pork 'n Beans, Miami's most dangerous square mile, where he blends in so completely he begins to believe he has finally found his identity.

Yet harmony is fragile. As the years pass, Willie fails to see the subtle shift around him-until the community that once embraced him begins to view him as an outsider, an intruder, a threat. And then disaster strikes, in a way he never imagined.