In this article, the author examines her racial identity and its impact on her interpretation of the schooling experiences of a 10th grade Latina in an ethnographic case study. Prior to this study, the author had been working in a university-based family literacy program where she met Zulmy's mother, Manuela. Due to her experience as a middle grades English/Spanish bilingual teacher, and due to the observations she made about the difficult transition for many of her former bilingual students who entered high school, she was primarily interested in following the school and literacy experiences of Mexican immigrant students in the high school. She had originally met three young Latinas who were in their freshman year; all of them, including Zulmy, were daughters of the Mexican mothers with whom she worked in the literacy program. As a Filipino American whose second language is Spanish, the young women were curious and intrigued about her interest in them, and about her knowledge of Spanish, which she learned in high school and later in college. To orient herself with the school setting, she also interviewed Zulmy's teachers and friends about the academic and social life in Zulmy's high school. For the purpose of understanding how class, religion, and immigration influenced her interpretation of Zulmy's life, this article mostly addresses the relationship the author had with her. The author describes her relationship with Zulmy, first through her initial description of her as a church girl. Then she follows this piece with a personal refection on language, identity, and ethnicity. Throughout the article, Cynthia Reyes examines their research relationship vis-a-vis her personal reflections on language and identity, and analyzes the implications that such a relationship has on understanding data and writing about one's participant. (Contains 1 note.)