This article considers the roles played by ethnic mentions, or ethnonyms, in the discursive reconstruction of a former neighborhood in Easton, Pennsylvania, “Syrian Town.” We argue that these labels engage in the production of ethnic difference by depicting a social world composed of discrete types while presupposing a local class divide and a contrasting neighborhood imagined as elite and privileged. In this way, speakers narrating stories of bygone days are taking a particular stance toward the diversity of their former neighborhood and the segregated cityscape of contemporary times, thereby challenging a once‐dominant chain of indexicality. We conclude by arguing that close attention to vernacular usage allows us to advance our understanding of the relative importance of racial, ethnic, and class‐based distinctions in specific locales, and challenges hegemonic constructions of the evolution of a Black‐White binary in twentieth‐century American cities.