Marivic, a naïvely optimistic 14-year-old girl from the Philippines who uses daydreams and fantasy to cope with reality, believes her life is finally changing for the better now that she and her siblings are moving to America. All her hopes and expectations come to a head when she ends up at Jefferson Davis, a high school in inner city Jacksonville. It’s a half hour comedy that explores the American experience from a newer American perspective.

SYNOPSIS:

Fresh off the plane from the Philippines, it’s Marivic’s first day of American high school. Her fantastically whimsical expectations of what this day will be are quickly torpedoed by Cello, the school’s queen bee and Marivic’s childhood “friend.” Cello begrudgingly introduces Marivic to her “posse,” Tasha and Kameelah, and her boyfriend, Marcus, but ends up outing Marivic as a lesbian when she becomes jealous of the attention Marcus is giving her.

Yara, Cello’s arch nemesis, enters the school and Marivic is immediately lovestruck. In their first class, Marivic tries and fails to flirt with Yara, and it is learned that there will be a class presidential debate in which both Cello and Yara are competing. The two of them and their campaign teams are excused from class to prepare.

During debate prep, Yara follows Marivic into the bathroom to find out about her relationship with Cello. While explaining their past, Marivic comes to the realization that Cello has never been a good friend to her. Once Yara leaves, Cello confronts Marivic about her conversation with Yara and tells her that Yara is off limits. Cello reveals that she struggled as a new immigrant in the US and learned that to survive, she had to either be just like the Americans or have enough power to beat them.

Before the debate, Yara reveals to Marivic that she plans to humiliate Cello. This confuses Marivic until she sees Marcus and Yara conspiring to take her down. After some trepidation, Marivic tries to warn Cello, but she is too busy to listen to what she’s saying.

During the debate, Yara plays an embarrassing video that turns the crowd against Cello. In a ploy to win everyone back, Cello pretends to come out of the closet and uses Marivic as proof she is gay. It works. Realizing this attempt was not enough, Yara asks Marivic to help her with her life’s mission, to expose Cello for the fraud she is. In the final scene, Marivic explains to her younger siblings that while it was nothing like she expected, this is America, and she loves it!