Toomer was majority white in ancestry and his appearance was "racially indeterminate". As noted above, he lived in both black and white societies as he was growing up and during his life. He did not want to be bound by race and identified as an "American", representing a new mixed culture. Given his wide experiences, he resisted being classified as a Negro writer. But, his most enduring work was "Cane", was inspired by his time in the rural South and the imaginative exploration of the early African-American world of his absent father.