Ruben Sierra

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

A distraught husband kidnaps the judge who freed his wife's killers on insufficient evidence. He gives him seven hours to find evidence that will put them away, or he'll kill his wife.

The true story of John Chapman, a college president who took a sabbatical and went out and got a job as a general laborer, to try to experience life outside his well-ordered but insulated college environment.