Sofi is of both Native and Spanish heritage and grows up in the small town of Tome, New Mexico. She marries Domingo at eighteen, settles down on her grandparents’ ranch, and gives birth to four daughters: Esperanza, Caridad, Fe, and La Loca. After Domingo gambles away their property, Sofi instructs him to leave, and she raises the girls on her own while working at a meat market. Twenty years later, Domingo returns and takes up residence on their farm without any discussion of what has happened in the interim. Sofi tolerates Domingo but begins to grow impatient with his laziness and continued gambling. Fed up with the untended issues in her own home as well as those in Tome, Sofi becomes the “mayor” of the city, even though such an office does not officially exist.

Sofi asserts that, “the only way things are going to get better around here, is if we, all of us together, try to do something about it (142). She effects significant change in the community by starting a sheep-grazing and wool-weaving enterprise and a food co-op.These organizations provide jobs, educational opportunities, and healthy food to the community, and “the title of La Mayor Sofi did catch on informally, out of respect” (149).