Drawing from Latinx studies and the literacy experiences of men employed as university custodial staff, we propose a home- and community-based approach to workplace literacy. The central goals of this approach are to allow participants to identify their professional and vocational literacies to highlight their literate assets and goals across contexts. The approach offers a humanizing lens for individuals who are often denied the opportunity to showcase their literate repertoires and desires within the context of their formal workplaces. Overall, this article calls for a broader understanding of participants' literacy experiences--not only as workers but as people who work.

Writing studies scholars have long examined how race- and class-based hierarchies shape teachers’ and students’ experiences of writing in US universities. But universities are also workplaces that profit from a racialized writing economy in which laborers of color () underpin writing production. Drawing from a yearlong qualitative case study that examines the writing practices of university custodial workers, this article addresses the following research questions: What kinds of writing do university custodial workers use and practice? What are the conditions for their writing? And what do these practices and conditions tell us about writing in race- and class-stratified workplaces, including educational institutions? Using critical race (; ; ; ; ; ; ) approaches to literacy sponsorship (), and observations and interviews with university custodians, this article discusses two main findings: (1) labor conditions restrict participants’ writing as a part of race and class hierarchies; and (2) the participants employ writing practices that run under the radar of institutional restrictions to serve their own purposes. This study’s findings have implications for workplace writing scholarship and higher education policy, because they expand definitions of and purposes for workplace writing in institutions of education.

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