In recent years the separation between ethnographic research and the ethnographic text have continued to collapse. No longer is the anthropologist the sole authority on determining the native's point of view. Anthropologists are now writing within newer collaborative frameworks-newer frameworks that continue to challenge who has the right to speak for whom. This shift in ethnographic writing allows us to explore culture even more deeply through the process of obtaining narratives that focus on dialoguing the encounter between ethnographer and consultant. With this developing ethnographic moment in mind, this thesis explored through the use of collaboratively-constructed ethnographic narratives the juxtaposition of a family's identity and its place within the context of a larger community identity. In the final analysis, the narratives brought to light a symbiotic connection that exists between family, community, and the larger world. / Department of Anthropology