Abstract

In his autobiography, I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes affirms that he "wouldnít give up jazz fora world revolution" [1] . Janheinz Jahn adds that Hughes "always rated the African-American culturalheritage higher than any ideology" [2] . This may have been the way Hughes viewed African-Americanculture, but I would add that he probably rated highly the cultural heritage of any people he saw asbeing part of the off-white world. Furthermore, Hughes didnít do so without an ideological perspective; infact, he desired to be what Edward Mullen called a "spokesman for the downtrodden of the world" [3] . Inthis paper I will seek to examine Langston Hughesí use of images and stereotypes of a particular ethnicgroup, the Gitanos , or gypsies of Southern Spain, and demonstrate how he uses Blues and Flamencoto identify African-Americans with other racial groups