This paper explores how narrative discourse adds to the construction of Mapuche ethnic identities within a context of displacement and examines how such identities are negotiated in interactional contexts of communication. The larger inquiry covered 12 focus groups and 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews with members of Mapuche families living in four comunas of Santiago, Chile. For this paper, the assay is based on 12 interviews and six focus groups directed by a native speaker Mapuche woman interviewer and complemented by participant observations of everyday life and ceremonial events in the comunas. From a social constructivist framework, the paper centers on narrative genres and topics based on their emergence in interaction. It uses De Fina and Georgakopoulou’s ‘Social Interactional’ approach, which recognizes the discursive sedimented processes that produce, for example, recognizable genres and themes typical of a group or community. It is shown that storytelling has a pivotal role in the connections of Mapuche to their southern roots via narrative references to family focused on traditional practices recreated in an urban context.