A poor ignorant campesino on a large Cuban plantation becomes innocently embroiled in revolution and an earth-shaking, although brief, affair with his patron's daughter. He escapes persecution with his newborn daughter just before the cataclysm befalls Cuban society. Unknown to father and daughter, a twin brother was born shortly after their escape.

Juan grows up pampered and spoiled in the lap of luxury among the wealthiest class of Cubans in Miami, but nevertheless senses that something fundamental is missing in his life of splendors. The beautiful, humble Esmeralda grows up in Spanish Harlem as the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher who honors his deceased wife by abusing the unwitting girl, who resembles her so. Widely seen to have inherited her father's mysticism, Esmeralda becomes the pride and wonder of El Barrio.

Then, one day, a handsome young man is drawn to her church, to her life, to her love. All of the spirits, the muses, nature itself, have conspired to bring together the now inseparable pair. Neither the violence of her libidinous father nor the financial resources of Juan's parents can tear the two asunder in this marvelous satire of magic realism and the literature of exile and immigration.