This article illustrates the complicated process of language socialization and literacy development with identity reformulations that Korean students face while learning English in U.S. schools. With providing a detailed and broad picture of second language literacy development across time, the article presents two research-based studies conducted at the elementary and secondary levels respectively. Despite the constant growth of the Korean population in the USA for decades, few research studies have examined the ways that newly arrived Korean students engage in language learning and literacy practice along with changes in life, language, literacy, and culture. The presented studies employed ethnographic data gathering methods and utilized methods of constant comparison, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis. The first study focuses on literate identities of second grade Korean students in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. The second study explores how Korean adolescents engage in school writing practice and how they negotiate their identities in and with writing through a case study.