The setting is 1953, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Hector Lopez, a Puerto Rican able to come to the United States because of his newly gained citizenship, has just begun a new life in a new neighborhood. He has just moved into an apartment only costing around $200 a month with his girlfriend, Migdalia Aguilar- they don’t know it yet, but they will marry and have 7 children. Their neighbors are a mix of Italians and Poles, hesitant to accept Puerto Ricans into their precious neighborhood; Hector is spat at, threatened by the flashing of guns, and is labeled a cockroach and a spic because he is unable to ‘spic’ English. He dreams of learning English, of obtaining an education, but he must settle for the words and the fragments of sentences he picks up from his co-workers. During the day, he works at a factory manufacturing cloth and paper bags, and at night, he works at the Phoenix Candy Company manufacturing Now and Laters. The sweet aroma of the fruit-flavored taffy informs Migdalia when Hector is home. He greets her with a kiss and a handful of Now and Laters; he does not understand her obsession with these candies, what they mean to her; the aroma is not only a cue that her love has returned home safely but that she is longer alone in her homesickness (and little did she know she is also pregnant and Now and Laters are her first pregnancy craving). She spends her days secretly wishing she was back home, questioning if their new life here is worth the struggle and discrimination. She nags Hector to work fewer hours, but he must for their security. He tells her to be patient; to wait for Sunday, her favorite day; it is when they attend the 10 o’clock Spanish mass service at St. Michael’s Chruch; the day they stroll through Sunset Park and indulge in a 5 cent bottle of Coke. This Sunday they start to notice how the neighborhood is slowly coming to reflect home-Maria has opened a bodega, Josie a bakery, the Riveras a restaurant. Her homesickness will soon begin to fade, for this is also the day she will discover she is pregnant, and finally, her move to Sunset Park, Brooklyn will all make sense.