Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu is living in Chinatown, in 1950s era San Francisco when she meets and befriends her first white friend, Kathleen Miller through a mutual interest in aerospace. When the pair express their desire to see a performer at a well-known lesbian bar, they sneak out and it's there that they explore their sexuality and begin a relationship with each other in secret. However, with Lily's conservative Chinese family at her heels and McCarthyism threatening her family, Lily will need to make tough choices about her relationship with Kathy and who she wants to be.