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"There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this 'homeland of the free.' "
The narrator displays something I would have never seen in my own life, and gives me a small perspective of what they feel.

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"I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream."

Gives us a look into his life and personal experiences. Our perspective as the readers changes through his narrative.

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(America never was America to me)
(It never was America to me)

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Mirror: Feeling like the America that was the perfect dream for so many was never built for me, because I was not included in the equalities and opportunities that America offered.

Window: It’s interesting to see how the same things that society deals with today were equally if not more prevalent in the poet’s society.

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At the end of the poem, Hughes says:
"America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!"

In the turn, Hughes seems to make a declaration, a commitment to seeing an America that is for him. As a trans person, this is a mirror for my own fears and my own hopes about America.

As a white person, though, in many ways America has always been for me.

While in some ways I carry the weight of oppression, in others I carry the weight of privilege, and it is necessary to hold both of those truths together.

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"The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America" America is made up of all of us, with such variety but still in one.

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even though this was written in 1935, its terrifyingly relevant today. the experiences shared in this poem are traumatizing and graphically described, yet we think about these events as so long ago - the reality is that these emotions aren’t just subject to one time period, but tangled in history

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Window: In my life, I haven't faced the same struggles that the narrator has, so the poem puts me in his perspective.
Mirror: The poet talking about how America was never a great country like how people wanted it to be reflects the world today, since there are still many problems from the past that we face.

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" I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—"
those who built the nation are people whom we should really appreciate and remember

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window: this poem gave a perspective on the native american experience on america, and how unjust their treatment was by colonizers and how America was built on both the backs of slavery and native american genocide.

mirrors: "I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—" really stood out to be because the way that immigrants view america as a land of oppourtunities and education relates to my families experience of coming to america and building our lives here

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Even though I have never been the "the Negro bearing slavery's scars." it just hit me because as a Black women in America, my people built the foundation of America. We worked hard and kept this belief that "We the People of the United States" would have equal rights as anyone else. America was built on making everyone feel free with "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" but we don't have that yet. "Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings," just adds to the point that the minority now is what build the American dream yet we don't have the form of freedom we wished for.

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one window i found was where the speaker kept repeating that america was never america for him, implying that the speaker never felt the freedom that america stood for

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(“there’s never been equality for me, no freedom in this ‘homeland of the free’”)
(“i am the young woman full of strength and hope, tangled in that ancient endless chain”)

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Window: this puts me in the perspective of a black man growing up in a time period in which I did not exist in, 1935, and it shows me his struggles and the lack of equality for people like him. But it also shows his desire and passion for wanting to achieve his goals.

Mirror: Langston and I are both people in America who are trying to chase a crazy dream, that not everyone believes we can achieve. But we both have the drive and hope for a great future.