The author is noting that immigrants bring with them the values, traditions, and perceptions that were shaped in a far different culture. For a Polish and Yiddish-speaking immigrant from Eastern Europe, especially in the years immediately following the destruction of her country and the genocide of her fellow Jews, transitioning to an English-speaking island nation in the South Pacific could not have been easy. In most countries, immigrants are looked down upon and treated with suspicion if not outright contempt. They are often viewed as contaminating the culture native to the country in which they have newly arrived. It is in that context that Lewitt ends her poem with the following: