This study investigates how university students in the US and Hong Kong perceive themselves as literate and biliterate beings. All the participants in Hong Kong are biliterate in at least two languages (including Cantonese, Mandarin, and English), whereas only 40% of the U.S. participants are biliterate in at least two languages (including English, Spanish, German, and Portuguese). This study examines how the participants define and situate literacy as well as literacies from multiple perspectives by considering their academic as well as socio-political contexts in the US and Hong Kong. In addition, a majority of them have posed the issue of how English is perceived differently from other languages they use.