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Programmatic collaborations involving mathematicians and educators in the U.S. have been valuable but complex (e.g., Heaton & Lewis, 2011; Bass, 2005; Bass & Ball, 2014). Sultan & Artzt (2005) offer necessary conditions (p.53) including trust and helpfulness. Articles in Fried & Dreyfus (2014) and Bay-Williams (2012) describe outcomes from similarly collaborative efforts; however, there is a gap in the literature in attending to how race and gender intersect with issues of professional status, culture, and standards of practice. Arbaugh, McGraw and Peterson (2020) contend that “the fields of mathematics education and mathematics need to learn how to learn from each other - to come together to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts” (p. 155). Further, they posit that the two must “learn to honor and draw upon expertise related to both similarities and differences” across disciplines, or cultures. We argue that in order to do this, we must also take into account race, gender, language. For example, words like trust or helpfulness can read very differently when viewed from personal and professional culture, gender, or racial lenses. This poster shares personal vignettes from the perspective of three collaborators – one black male mathematician, one white female mathematics educator, and one white woman who was trained as a mathematician but works as a mathematics educator - illustrating some of the complexity of collaboration.