An animated film that recounts the story of a mouse, Fievel Mousekewitz, and his journey from the old country to the U. S. in the late 19th century. Fievel and his family are mice who live on a farm in Russia. Their village is destroyed by Cossack raiders and they decide to flee the pogroms of the czar. They flee for America, as they have heard that America is the land that has no cats. However, Fievel is separated from his family by a storm as the boat is reaching the shores of their new country. Fievel, now alone, alights in New York and finds the life of an immigrant to be just as hard as it was back in Russia. Desperate to find his family, Fievel works hard to survive but as a newly-immigrated mouse he wind up working in sweatshops. There indeed are lots of cats, and Fievel's family fall prey to a cat protection racket run by the sinister Warren T. Rat, a cat disguised as a rat. Fievel must struggle against the cats and calls for help from the old country mice, including the Giant Mouse of Minsk to help him defeat the cats, and become reunited as a family.