A Vietnamese-Australian writer's father arrives at the writer's apartment in Iowa City, having flown in from Sydney, Australia. He has arrived at a particularly stressful time for the writer, who is in his final year at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. With his final story due in a few days, the writer is facing writer’s block. His girlfriend, Linda, tells him to make sure he finishes the story despite the visit from his father. 
A week prior, the writer’s friend suggests he write about his Vietnamese heritage on a late-night walk. While they discuss the merits and limitations of “ethnic literature,” they hear gunshots nearby.
The writer and his father walk to a nearby river. When the writer returns from buying them coffee, his father is talking to a man over a burning gasoline drum, telling the man his son writes stories about Vietnamese boat people. The writer remembers being fourteen and hearing his father tell violent stories of wartime Vietnam, specifically about the My Lai massacre. Later that night, the narrator decides to write his final story about his Vietnamese father, titling it “ETHNIC STORY.”
At a coffee shop the next day, Linda reads the story and accuses the writer of romanticizing his father’s traumatic past and of excusing his father's abuse. The writer asserts he never said his father abused him. When the writer returns home, his father tells him he read the story while his son was asleep. He tells the writer the story gets things wrong.
The writer convinces his father to tell him about Vietnam so he can get the story right. Begrudgingly, the writer’s father gets drunk and talks to him. The writer takes notes, then writes a new story that night. The next morning, the writer’s father is not there. When he goes looking for his father, the writer finds him burning his new story by the river.