In the near future, the United States has set aside designated areas for each group of ethnic minorities. After growing up in one of the cultural conservation units, three dancers consider leading a life outside their home.

A young Native American man visits a burial site on a nearby island and must reflect on both his allegiance to his culture and to himself.

Is it better to have a human civilization devoid of art and culture than to have none at all? Three Earth ambassadors must whether to annihilate a space colony that has traded away human consciousness for a hive mind that feels nothing but the need for survival. In the distant future, three humans in possession of nuclear warheads must decide whether to allow a remarkable human variant species without consciousness to dominate the galaxy or destroy them forever.

In Iowa, a young Black man goes to a party where he meets a host of artist types who cause him to reflect on how people relate to each other.

When a Cuban American high schooler decides to attend college out-of-state, she must confront her ambiguous feelings about her family, hometown, and identity from a distance over the next several years.

When her child refuses to take off his Halloween costume because he’s decided that he’s a Mongolian nomad, an ESL teacher in Portland finds herself stuck in an absurd conflict that further strains her suffering marriage.

A white American man and a Chinese-American woman visit the woman's family in China. After the woman's cousin compares the woman's Chinese to a toddler's, she stops speaking English and decides she wants to stay in China for awhile before returning, to reconnect with her family and her place of birth. Upon returning to the United States alone, the man, initially disinterested and unmotivated, begins to learn Chinese.

When a man marries a princess from Cimmeria, a country he believes he imagined into existence, he must come to terms with a culture that recognizes twins as a single person—a primary and their shadow—and the lengths a shadow twin would go to in order to become their own person.

A middle-aged American woman living abroad feels alone and out of place, so she seeks company from the local church and the Mothers' Union held there. However, as an atheist, the uptight nature of the church and its members leave the woman feeling unsettled.

An older Japanese man reflects on his past and learns more about the American culture through small encounters with strangers on a train.