The setting of “I, Too” is most clearly a white family’s home in which the speaker works as a servant. As discussed earlier, the setting of the poem makes the speaker’s gender ambiguous, as domestic servants in white homes were historically Black women. In the same vein, it is important to consider why Hughes chose to locate the poem in a domestic setting, rather than the public sphere. The fact that the poem takes place in a private, intimate setting contrasts with the separation and exclusion the speaker describes. This contrasts suggests that even though African Americans are politically, socially, and legally marginalized within American society, they are also integral to it and are deeply entwined with white Americans. At the same time, the setting points to white America's hypocrisy for allowing African Americans into their homes as employees, while denying them political rights outside...