Investigating oral and written language as it challenged and reinforced ethnic difference did not fall neatly into any one methodological box. This is not a new problem in applied social language and educational research. The complex real-world problems of interest to applied social linguists and educational researchers rarely fit into the theory or methodology of any one discipline. My work with youth in South Vista attempted to bring together knowledge about oral and written language at various micro and macro levels as it mapped out experiences of difference, division, and unity and as it relates to educational theory and practice. Such social, cultural, and linguistic terrain demanded several methods of collection and analysis from the distinct, but complementary disciplines of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, critical discourse analysis, language and literacy studies in education and, more generally, cultural anthropology.