This film follows Central Americans on their long and perilous journey north to the U.S. in search of a better life. Once inside Mexican borders, these migrants make their way by hopping trains, calling to mind American tales of homeless persons and vagabonds. But the stakes are higher and the romance of rootlessness is absent. Instead we find young men who have been maimed falling off trains and we hear horrifying accounts of street gangs who prey on the vulnerability of the travelers. An inspiring spirit emerges, however, when we meet a group of rural Mexican women who make food each week and toss it onto the passing rail cars, recalling another early America, one home to the Underground Railroad.