Havana, Cuba. Sixteen-year-old Lourdes yearns to emulate Che Guevara, and has a healthy disgust for gusanos (worms)-those who fled Cuba on the Mariel boatlift. Every summer she and other high school students work in the nationalized tobacco fields to prove their dedication to Fidel and the Revolution.
Lourdes, herself the product of a biracial marriage, outwardly scoffs at the old ways but she wears an azabache amulet under her clothing, next to her Che medallion to ward off evil spirits. She secretly prays to the orisha Yemayá, while she pledges her fealty to Fidel and the socialist ideals of her father, a professor of scientific communism at the University of Havana.
As she struggles with her confused sexuality, the pervasive race issues that are sundering her parents’ marriage, and the harsh realities of life in a glorified work camp, Lourdes begins to question her allegiances. Why does she want to be like Che?