Plot: While President George Bush (Senior) has ordered an attack on Iraq during 1991, Jasira Maroun, 13, lives in Syracuse with her Caucasian mother, Gail, while her father, Rifat, born in Beirut, Lebanon, originally a follower of Islam, now a Christian, lives in Houston. When Gail's boyfriend assists Jasira in shaving her pubic area, she is sent to live with her father. She attends school and becomes the target of racial slurs. Things become worse for this pretty and naive girl, when she befriends an African-American fellow-student, Thomas, her father forbids her to see Thomas anymore, and abuses her physically, while having an affair with a Frenchwoman; their neighbor, Travis Vuoso, is attracted to her; and she herself fantasizing of becoming a porn-star while dealing with her puberty, and the fact that she may no longer be a virgin.
Alternative Plot: At age 13, Jasira (Summer Bishil) lives with her mother, Gail (Maria Bello), in upstate New York, but is then sent to live with her rigid, emotionally distant Lebanese father, Rifat (Peter Macdissi), in Houston. Jasira, who is struggling with her emerging sexuality, finds herself subjected to the taunts of racist schoolmates, the sexual advances of her new boyfriend, Thomas (Eugene Jones), and the inappropriate yet titillating attentions of handsome, married neighbor Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart).
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