SOURCE: "Symbolizing America in Langston Hughes's 'Father and Son,'" in The Langston Hughes Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring, 1992, pp. 14-20.

In the following essay, Hubbard discusses Hughes's observations on the mulatto and the culture of race as depicted in the short story "Father and Son."

Langston Hughes was haunted by a sense of literal kinship between black and white Americans. His preoccupation shows up in much of his writing, even in the poem "I, Too" with its arresting second line that glosses the experience of blacks in America: "I am the darker brother." This ancient and just claim for recognition and acceptance is rooted in the poet's own biography. On his maternal side, Hughes inherited an enhanced perspective of what it means to be loved in a mixed marriage, wherein the claims of family take precedence over artificial claims such as those of race. His great grandfather, Captain...