A look at the early life of Barack Obama. Before he became President of the United States, he was one of the few black students at Columbia University NY in the early 80's. Faced with judgmental and racist opinions all around him, he tries to find his place in the world.

16 year old street-wise Apple (Vanessa Hudgens) has never had an easy life. Her mother, June Bailey (Rosario Dawson), is an addict and prostitute, is verbally and physically abusive, and is grooming her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Apple knows the streets, alleys and motels like the back of her hand but wants more from her life. She possesses a tenacious, tough, indomitable spirit, and will not surrender to fate. Apple runs away from her mother and tracks down her father whom she has never known, as he was only 19 when he got Apple's mother pregnant. Apple begs her now Wall Street Broker father, Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser), to take her in. In the few days under her father's care, she learns she's become pregnant by a kid from the streets she met on the train, who now wants nothing to do with her. She is forced to leave her father's home because of her choice to give birth to the baby she is carrying. Apple runs away again, and is eventually taken under the wing of Father ...