In this article, the authors examine (second) author Elma's teaching and learning, as it has been and continues to be shaped by her experiences in education. The authors interrogate her experiences in teacher education and in the K-12 system, considering the closed doors that she has encountered. The authors discuss how these experiences have challenged her to develop English language arts (ELA) curricula that center cultural identities as part of classroom discourse. Borrowing concepts from autoethnography, a genre in which the writer/researcher engages in the layered process of connecting the personal and the cultural (Duarte 1), the authors examine narratives that expose the interrelatedness of Elma's identities and experiences in and outside of schools -- identities and experiences that challenge (in)visibility. Beginning with the author's undergraduate ELA methods course, Elma worked with her English education professor, (first author) Limarys, to better understand her experiences as a Muslim woman and English teacher in the context of the author's preparation to teach and her future practice in urban public schools. As a professor and student teacher in a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse teacher education program assigned to fieldwork in a similarly diverse school district, both of the authors were admittedly surprised by the difficulties Elma experienced in her fieldwork in the authors' teacher education program. In examining Elma's experiences as a teacher candidate as framed by dominant narratives of multiculturalism and teacher education, the authors reflected on their own assumptions about education in diverse contexts. Elma turned to her inquiry on teacher identities, and her experiences creating curriculum and leading a Complicated Conversations Series workshop at her former college, to render visible the marginalizing narratives that shaped her fieldwork in teacher education and continue to inform her teaching practice.