Forty miles southeast of the sprawling megalopolis of Tijuana a small valley lies hidden in the arid hills. Here, in the Valley of San Jose a tiny nation of 35 Indian families struggles for survival. There are five other such villages in the area, inhabited by mixed communities of Kumeyaay and Pai Pai Indian pepople. They have eeked out a living from the stark landscape for more than 130 years, since their ancestors were pushed south, at gunpoint, across the U.S.-Mexico border. Unlike their relatives who live north of the border, these people have retained many of their traditional ways, feasting on acorns and white-throated wood rats and earning cash by making and selling baskets, pottery, bows and arrows, honey buckets, fiber skirts and sandals, hats and a host of other objects constructed in the traditional way.

A great wealth lies engraved in ancient memories passed from one generation to another for more than 5,000 years. It is the knowledge of the plants. Every Kumeyaay and Pai Pai Indian person, particularly the women, learned the names, favored locations, and practical applications of more than a thousand plants indigenous to the Southern California area. This knowledge base is still vital within the women, they still doctor their families with herbs, still harvest food from the hillsides, and still collect materials for their artisanry. In a way unfamiliar to most Americans, the people here derive their existence directly and observably from the land.

This is a story of remarkable courage, passion, intrigue, struggle, invention, innovation, victory, and human hope. It is a story as rich and complex as the characters who populate it. Gloria Montes Castaneda (57 years old in 2006) and Teodora Cuero (75 years old in 2006) are both matriarchs and herbalists.  Gloria, from a family of artisans, makes baskets in several styles. She is the community entrepreneur and she crosses the border into the United States, regularly, to sell the herbs and craft goods produced in the villages. Teodora infrequently crosses the border, typically remaining at home to doctor those in the community who need her.