Visions and Revisions of National Identity

The Langston Hughes Society at MLA 2025

New Orleans, Louisiana

January 9-12, 2025

In “I, Too,” one of Langston Hughes’s most famous poems, Hughes writes, “Tomorrow,/I’ll be at the table/When company comes,” offering a vision of equality that seemed far away  in 1926, an era of a Jim Crow, rampant nativism, and a resurgent Klan. Moreover, Hughes envisions the nation as family, with the speaker announcing, “I am the darker brother.” A decade later, in “Let America Be America Again,” Hughes contrasts the ostensible dream of the United States as a land of freedom with not only his experience but also a long list of disenfranchised occupants, from the “poor white” to the “red man,” noting that despite the “again” of the title, “America never was America to me.” Hughes’s vision of the nation appeals to founding principles of equality while acknowledging that these principles are not and have not been put into practice.

As Hughes began his literary career, issues of national identity were at the forefront. Nativism was surging, culminating in the Immigration Act of 1924, and eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant extolled the virtues of “Nordic stock,” while decrying the dangers of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe as well as non-European immigrants and native born minorities. Hughes was not alone in opposing the nativist narrative of nation. F. Scott Fitzgerald mocked these ideas directly in The Great Gatsby, while W.E.B. Du Bois called into question the very usefulness of national identity in the face of worldwide white supremacy in Dark Princess. These questions of the nation and national identity have not disappeared in the ensuing decades.

The Langston Hughes Society welcomes proposals for a panel exploring how Hughes or other artists engage with questions of national identity. Please submit proposals of no more than 300 words to Richard Hancuff (lhsociety.president@gmail.com) no later than March 29, 2024. Note that presenters must be members of the Langston Hughes Society by the time of the conference in order to present. Please indicate any AV equipment needs in your e-mail. For more information on the Langston Hughes Society, please visit our website at www.LangstonHughesSociety.org.