This paper is drawn from a larger ethnographic study that foregrounds the stories and perspectives of doctoral 
students from minorirized backgrounds, including those  who identify as Latinx, Black, differently-abled, and 
queer. Study participants were taking a year-long course in which they learned about and actually conducted an 
ethnographic case study. Working in research teams, the doctoral students were dropped into an already-set-up 
field site, a first-year composition course that almost all undergraduates take.