When the girl heard that she was Mexican, she repeated the question and raised her tone. Both her facial expression and voice show her incredulous attitudes towards her Mexican identity.

It indicates that the girl used to think of herself as an American not Mexican before her father told her this Mexican identity. She never suspected that she was an American in the past and she was shocked by her Mexican origin.

It means  Goodbye Sir in Spanish. The girl reluctantly accepted her Mexican identity. Then she spoke Spanish to the dean to demonstrate her identity. 

Indexicality is the process of creating meaningful links between linguistic forms such as words, address terms, and ways of speaking. In this clip, the most frequently used indexicals for the girl are personal pronouns  I and WE, which refer to herself and her family. Plus the auxiliary such as Am and Was also demonstrate the time positioning. She positioned herself as American in the past and she was confused about Mexican identity when she realized it for the first time. Roles on the other hand come with expected ways of speaking and on the other are constructed through particular ways of speaking (Bowe et al.,2014) The girl finally chose to speak Spanish as Mexicans should do this.

One study has found that deeper skin colors predict the existence of a lower social member and inner society (Relethford et al., 1983).  Mexican American’s education, occupation, and income provide evidence that lighter skin colors have better chances of living (Arce, Murgia, & Frisbie, 1987).

In the scenario, phenotype variations, including differences in physique and skin color, have not only been considered by Native Americans but also include the race itself being evaluated. Wealth accumulation also plays a sorting role: in high-end communities, wealthy businessmen use the notion of meritocracy to explain their choices in the education of children like where they are sending their children to school. The inheritance of a hierarchical role is reflected here as private school education will make this idea deeply rooted.

Bowe, Heather, Kylie Martin, and Howard Manns. 2014. ‘Positioning the Other’. In Communication across Cultures: Mutual Understanding in a Global World, 155–61. Cambridge University Press.

Debray, Carolin, and Helen Spencer-Oatey. 2019. ‘“On the Same Page?” Marginalisation and Positioning Practices in Intercultural Teams’. Journal of Pragmatics 144 (January): 15–28.

Harré, R. (2012). Positioning theory: Moral dimensions of social-cultural psychology. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 191–206). New York: Oxford University.

Kayı-Aydar, H. (2019). Positioning theory in applied linguistics : research design and applications. Palgrave Macmillan.

Relethford, J. H., Stern, M. P., Gaskill, S. P., & Hazuda, H. P. (1983). Social class, admixture, and skin color variation in Mexican‐Americans and Anglo‐Americans living in San Antonio, Texas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 61(1), 97-102.

Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Looking into Carlos's usage of paralinguistic elements in this conversation, the tone in this conversation, both couples are trying to deny their Mexican identity. He has confirmed the headmaster’s information that they have Mexican background, then he uses the word “but” to shift the master’s attention from their background to other information. They believe they already hold the power of advantage as a Mexican. This is their first position, and base on the couple’s non-Mexican identity position, they bought the house into a community that is far from the Latino but full of white people. In this conservation, they are denied their position as a Mexican. However, Juanita’s questioned of her identity as a Mexican has shifted the conversation moved to the next storyline.

 

Gaby was afraid that Juanita will be refused by the school if they lost their Mexican background, she started to let her daughter speak in Spanish. Also in the conversation, she was questioning:

"I don't understand, how could u just don't know we are Mexicans? We eat Mexican food all the time".

 

In this conversation,  she starts to confirm her position as a Mexican. So she starts to let Juanita inform her sister, that “she is also a Mexican”. Since there is a conflict that might influence their daughter to join the private school, the couple chose their second position which is to confirm their identity as Mexican.  

However, Gaby and Carlos's position was shifted again once they received the notice that Juanita is accepted by the private school. Gaby is happy with the result and she believes she was holding the power back. Therefore, she does not need to shift her position and she could back to her first position choice which she does not understand Spanish and live with the only white community. In this case, she is no longer talking about being a Mexican, and back to her regular life by making Mexican food but not believe herself as a Mexican. Carlos starts to question his current position which he made calls to other public schools and starts to question his wife’s position correctness. The different positions also being the conflict between the couples.