A 2-year ethnographic study of the intake process involving preschool-age Hispanic children at a school for the deaf formed the basis for this paper, which focuses on strategies that Hispanic hearing-impaired children develop in response to the sociocultural world of the classroom. The struggle for "ownership" of the child, which begins when the child starts school in the United States, is described. The paper analyzes how the interactions of "First World" institutions with "Third World" peoples are present in the local setting and form the context out of which the child's identity is shaped. The focus is on the children's participation in forming social alignments in the classroom. Interactional scenes involving three Hispanic deaf children in three different classrooms are presented, describing: the scene itself; the family and home environment; and issues of agency, power, social structuration, and ideology. The three examples are then discussed in terms of their relevance to issues of class, ethnicity, and other aspects of the family's relationship to the school as a public institution and to society in general. (JDD)