When their dad dies on his 55th birthday, Beverly Hills sisters Mary and Nora find themselves destitute, forced by a grasping sister-in-law to move in with their aunt in East L.A. Mary, the younger sister, is mortified: spoiled by her dad, ignorant of Spanish, scared of the vatos. Her sister convinces her to finish college, and she promptly decides that one of her T.A.s will be her ticket back to Rodeo Drive. Elder sister Nora, a law student, gets a job as a legal intern, and her supervisor Edward, brother of the grasping sister-in-law, promptly falls for her. Slowly the sisters realize what a rich place the barrio is at the same time that they get bruised in the contact sport of love.