Drawing on my research experiences as a Filipino American historian, this article explores what Michel Foucault calls "subjectification", the dialectial process of self-making and being-made, within the context of ethnic identities and transnational projects. Engaging the work of feminists of color in particular, it outlines three types of subject formations--compartmental, intersectional and constitutive--that foreground the tensions between how I identified myself and how others perceived me. It also explores the dilemma of belonging as an insider/outsider researcher in communities that one affiliates with as well as my emerging recognition of homelessness as a liminal and productive space for self-construction. Ultimately it links and gives voice to three issues that are often treated separately: first, the ways in which subjectivities are shaped by self and others; second, the ways in which race and ethnicity are linked to other axes of difference; and, third, the analytical and methodological insights of undertaking research in communities that one calls home. (Contains 4 figures and 12 notes.)