Here, There, and In‐Between: The Poetic Narratives of a Transnational Family's Translingual, Multiliterate, and Trans‐Geographic Reality

ABSTRACT Using transnational literacies as the theoretical framework, this qualitative case study explores the transnational language and literacy practices of one female China–U.S. transnational adolescent, Meiyi, and her family. The data corpus includes critical ethnographic data generated over 3 years. Through data generation and analysis guided by Portraiture, I explore Meiyi and her family's transnational literacies in multiple geographic locations, including in the United States and China, across various contexts (e.g., home, school, communities, and digital spaces), and through various modalities (e.g., print‐text reading and writing, pictures, conversations, drawing, cooking, etc.). In this study, I showcase a constructed narrative that follows the plot of Meiyi's poetry and intentionally and unapologetically focus on the translingual, multiliterate, and trans‐geographic literacies of Meiyi and her family that center on their intergenerational knowledge, lived histories, care, love, and joy, to push against assimilationist stances in education. The findings suggest Meiyi and her family's transnational literacies dynamically and fluidly encompassed their intergenerational wisdom and resilience across and in between national borders, contexts, and time. This study offers pathways for literacy/ELA teachers and researchers to become humble listeners of their im/migrant students' stories to carve out humanizing curricular and pedagogical spaces by weaving together various modes, literacies, and languages.