Main plot

Sol and Tião are born to different social backgrounds—she to a poor suburban family in Rio, and him to an even poorer family who raised cattle in West São Paulo State. They eventually meet, due to unlikely circumstances, but part again, as she has set as her ultimate priority to reach the United States or bust. While she comes to the U.S. to live as an illegal immigrant, he remains in Brazil and, despite many trials and tribulations, he becomes a successful rodeo cowboy.

Subplots

América has several secondary plots about a variety of compelling characters. These, for the most part, take place in four locales: Vila Isabel, a middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro; Boiadeiros, a fictional town in West São Paulo State; the home of a rich family in Rio; and Miami. Various characters from each subplots often meet each other due to character linkages within the story.

The main subplots were:

• A love triangle involving Feitosa, a man who worked with pets, his girlfriend Islene (who happened to have a blind daughter from a previous relationship) and Creusa (a virginal woman who turned out to be too lustful).
• The problems and achievements of a blind man, Jatobá, trying to live with his disability in a country with no infrastructure for the visually impaired. He is engaged to a non-blind woman.
• The mischievous Alex and Djanira, smugglers and "coyotes".
• The love life of Glauco, a 50-year-old businessman married to a kleptomaniac woman that strives for a divorce in order to marry her lover (but he later leaves both for a 19-year-old girl).
• The complicated relationship between a middle-class American professor, Edward Talbot, and his rich girlfriend, May, who does social work at a ghetto school in Miami. Due to fan demand, the author of the soap opera changed its ending so Edward ends up marrying the main character, Sol.
• The lives of several illegal immigrants living in a boarding house in Miami kept by a Mexican woman, with Brazilian roots, named Consuelo.
• The thriving Brazil rodeo culture. Rodeo is a traditional sport in many countries in the Americas, with influences from the history of Mexican and Brazilian vaqueros or vaqueiros (cowboys) and American cowboys.

Ratings

Gay kiss deleted scene

While being cited as a pop culture phenomenon previously, the soap opera received greater exposure in the media after a long-running (2005) storyline between two gay characters included a scene in which they share a kiss. The scene was scheduled to be air in the final episode, which created much anticipation from the gay community in Brazil. However, Rede Globo, the soap opera's production company, elected not to run the scene, much to the surprise of the writers, fans and actors involved. The event led to a number of protests for equal rights, condemning Globo for their actions.^{[citation needed]}

Criticism of the positive portrayal of rodeo

Brazilian animal rights organizations criticized the telenovela because rodeo was favorably exposed in the story.^[3] Several non-large-scale protests happened in several cities and activists tried to exhort a nationwide boycott campaign against the series. Coincidentally, the series faced a decline of its audience,^[4] though that was not attributed to a boycott eventually.