This interdisciplinary research examines the ways that identity categories, including race, class, gender and place, influence literacies within and outside of school contexts. It weaves together the authors girlhood memories in a working class African American community that experienced white flight, and the narratives of children and mothers of color in a low-income housing complex in the South. It includes participants interpretations of race through multicultural childrens literature; and theoretical stories afforded by phenomenology, human geography, critical race theory, and critical theories of literacy and literature.