This article speaks conceptually and methodologically about the ethics and politics of doing research with newcomer refugee youth and issues of representation. Feminist poststructuralist paradigms across a variety of fields have critically examined notions of experience, agency, and identity to in order to encompass more fluid understandings of how individuals and events are represented in text (Butler & Scott, 1992; Canning, 1994;Scott, 1986;Wolf, 1996). Starting from this theoretical framework, I draw from experiences of conducting research with a group of high school refugee students from the Vietnamese Central Highlands to reflect on how positionality and reflexivity can influence the portraits researchers render of their study participants. I consider the importance of examining the interplay between language and authenticity of representation in qualitative research with refugee English Language Learner (ELL) youth.