This paper uses the notion of symbolic competence, to explore how the Swedish–English bilingual author manages to parley a set of insider-outsider subject positions when communicating in transnational and intercultural contexts. Ethnographic vignettes are examined to analyze calculated language choices of the author during particular speech situations in Sweden. It is demonstrated that the hiding of linguistic skills, or hidden bilingualism, bolstered the symbolic competence required to ease self-presentation during social encounters whilst moderating the equivocation of being concurrently insider and outsider. Drawing on principles of the ethnography of communication in concert with the complementary discourse analytic perspective of nexus analysis, Ethnographic vignettes are analyzed to explore strategic language choices of the Swedish–English bilingual author during specific speech situations in Sweden. It is shown that the concealment of linguistic abilities, or covert bilingualism, served as a resource to support the symbolic competence needed to facilitate the presentation of self during social encounters while mitigating the ambiguity of being simultaneously insider and outsider.