South Chicago gives you lots of reasons to join a gang. Like, if you say no, they beat you up, follow your little sister home from school, and torch your house. Pretty soon, wearing your tattoo and colors, you learn what gangland means: kill or be killed.

Maybe both.

High school seniors Tony and Carlos are determined to resist the call of the streets. For years they've watched helplessly as blood from drive-by shootings covers the pavement, as friends get strong armed or seduced into the Knights or Devils.

All Tony and Carlos want to do is leave the ghetto and go to college. But now the gangs have targeted them, and they find themselves abandoned on the urban battlefield.

Now, Tony and Carlos must take desperate measures to safeguard their futures and families from gangland's vengeance. Richly textured and poignantly detailed in a voice of raw authenticity, Daisies in the Junkyard is the story of the Mexican-American community struggling to maintain its culture and integrity against a backdrop of urban warfare.