Little Erika is a "crew child." Her mother comes from a small town in Bavaria, and her father, an African American soldier, is called back to the States before she is born. At the age of seven, Erika is taken by the youth welfare office to a children's home, where she is subjected to the tyrannical and racist methods of Sister Hildegard and even survives an exorcism. As an adult, Ika is in her late thirties when she first encounters other Afro-Germans. Years later, she sets out to search for her biological father and embarks on her first journey to the United States.