“Get Your Facts Straight”: A Practitioner Study of U.S.-Based South Asian International Graduate Students’ Literate Identity Navigations

Abstract

As South Asian international students increasingly enter U.S. higher education, they face unique barriers to asserting their full identities in their institutions (e.g., racism, cultural exclusions, and stereotyping). While prior literacy research has explored how historically marginalized students use their literacies to negotiate on-campus identities amidst systemic constraints, little work has foregrounded South Asian international learners’ literate identity-making. This practitioner study addresses this gap by highlighting how, in an out-of-institution inquiry community, seven South Asian international students used their literacies to conceptualize their on-campus identity negotiations. Informed by DesiCrit and a sociocultural literacy perspective, we discuss two findings pertaining to students’ meaning-making: how they navigated racialized identity assignments, and how they (re)authored selves and institutions. Illuminating South Asian international students’ dexterous literate identity-work, our research has implications for how literacy research and practice can purposefully honor these learners’ literate identity-making in and beyond campuses.