This study draws on interviews with 22 Resident Assistants of Color across three universities to better understand the racialized nature of their work within white institutional spaces. We bring together theories of emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983; Turner-Kelly et al., 2021) and white institutional space (W.L. Moore, 2008) to detail the tensions and contradictions these students experience between their institutional role as RAs and their racialized identities as Students of Color at historically white universities. Implications for supporting RAs of Color are offered.