Using discourse analysis, this article explores how Mexican‐American students at an Arizona high school exploited intersections of race, gender, and socioeconomic class to position themselves and their peers along a racial continuum from less to more Mexican. Thus, private social distinctions among students both mirrored and transformed publicly circulating discourses of belonging, foreignness, and civility. The findings inform understandings of the complex, day‐to‐day construction of race and other social categories among students in U.S. schools.