An English slave trader is marooned on a remote tropical island, forced to fend for himself and deal with crushing loneliness.
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
The dynamics of a typical middle-class family are shaken up after the introduction of an enthusiastic door-to-door vacuum salesman.
