Langston Hughes '' Cora Unashamed'
Langston Hughes' "Cora Unashamed" was written in the 1930s, a time that represents when the U.S was experiencing the Great Depression. Of all the races affected by the Great Depression, African Americans were hit the worse. Racial inferiority and racism plagued African American’s opportunity of establishing economic wealth. In the short story, the protagonist Cora Jenkins is an African American domestic worker for a wealthy white family in Iowa. Cora’s family was poor and the only African American family in the small town of Melton, Iowa. She took up domestic work after quitting eighth grade to earn more for her family. Cora’s work at the Studevant’s included housework and raising Jessie, the Studevant’s daughter. “Cora Unashamed” exhibited the rocky relationship black domestic workers had with their white bosses. It exhibits how workers were underpaid and how disenfranchised African Americans were exploited by white families. The short story also explains the lengths domestic workers were willing to go to make money for their family which included raising two families.
African American domestic workers only had a limited array of jobs available Cora noted that she was treated like a dog, but she stood it because she had to be able to provide for her and her family. Though Cora was treated poorly and over worked, she had to endure the treatment because of the state of the economy and racial inferiority. Work for African Americans didn’t come by easily
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Cora’s life as a domestic worker consisted of being underpaid, feeling of being owned, and raising a child that wasn’t her own. Cora stood being underpaid and the feeling of being owned to take care of herself and her family. Although she raised someone’s else child, she raised Jessie like she was her own. Cora’s story is the story of African American domestic workers in the early 20th
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