"Our stories are doubted at every step by case managers, immigration officials and judges who make it their job to reject us."

There is irony in this statement, as well as the whole idea of refugees leaving the poor living conditions of their countries just to experience a different kind of poor living condition. The roles of these authorities play a part in expressing how in Villawood, the system is rigged in a way that makes it difficult, if not virtually impossible to be released. The illustration of the man being killed by the gavel also shows how these officials are essentially deciding the fates of the refugees, sentencing many of them to years of torture and ultimately death in these detention centers.

This line can be interpreted literally, as the speaker spent at least three years collecting food, and she does not want the years of work her children now have to go through to go to waste. The speaker might also mean that she doesn't want this tradition to die. The act of collecting bush tucker with her mother and aunts is a memory she treasures, and she cares enough to continue the activity with her own children. This, along with the traditions mentioned in the other poems, are a part of her culture, one she wishes to preserve for generations to come.

Ka was always under the impression that her father was a victim who suffered in prison, and this was clearly meaningful enough to her that she created a sculpture dedicated to him. In that one confession, however, the entire illusion was broken. She not only literally lost the sculpture of her prisoner father, but she now has to face the fact that he was not as innocent a man as she once thought he was. She is forced to carry this emotional baggage knowing that her father was once a murderer and must decide if she can ever love him again.

I thought this was a really good metaphor for the English in Antigua, or colonization in general. Groups of people come into a country (or home) as if it's their own, and make dozens of changes that they believe would make it a better place. There is blatant disregard for the people who already live there and how they feel about these changes. As Kincaid mentions later, actions like building schools and libraries in Antigua only benefit the English, and it doesn't help that they promote the distorted or erased versions of Antiguan history.

We are reminded of Belgium's diversity and the idea of Brussels being an "open city." Julius here brings up Farouq's story and how it negates Belgium's supposed color-blindness. Dr. Maillotte, only a few lines before this one, says that their society is open to everyone. She immediately retracts this when she asks why a society would want to welcome someone who tries so hard to be different. I found it interesting how in Maillotte's world, even an open city has its restrictions and a status quo that should be kept. This is clearly very different from Farouq's perspectives seen in the last section.

Farouq expresses appreciation for individuality and diversity, not only in the context of culture/ethnicity but in points of view as well. As Julius mentions earlier (p.107), people with influence greater than others have the power to portray themselves and other groups within their community however they feel, which may lead outsiders to believe in caricature-like versions of certain people. These stereotypes are only fueled by any thoughts people may have grown up hearing, beliefs that have been embedded in their own communities. Farouq wants people to think for themselves, rather than be told what to believe by people who claim to know better than they do. This line, to me, really shows just how radical of a thinker Farouq is.

Here, Cole personifies the song, showing how meaningful this music is to the speaker. Previously, the speaker had talked about the loneliness he feels when walking through the streets. Music may help the speaker relieve himself of some of that loneliness, as it's able to keep him company on his trip home. At the same time, music may have the opposite effect on some and seclude them further from the outside world, as many today find comfort in keeping their earbuds or headphones on and shutting out the people around them when they travel.

This is advice that the woman gives to Kerry. She is so bent on having him admit that he has done wrong in the past and that doing so will serve him well in the long run. However, this statement turns hypocritical later on when Kerry tells her about their father and the horrible things he's done. She doesn't want to accept this truth and goes completely against what she tells Kerry here. There is a big difference between the woman and Kerry's attitudes, as Kerry claims to be willing to acknowledge his past, while the woman is completely avoidant.

Head mentions Moleka choosing to take the “dusty footpath” on multiple occasions. This image juxtaposed with the image of the busy highway shows just how unusual Moleka's behavior towards Margaret and the Masarwa people in general have been. Moleka has a voice in his village, and by accepting Margaret as a teacher and providing her with a place to stay, as well as allowing his Masarwa servants to share a table and utensils with him at a meal, he’s taking steps to change and challenge the norms set by his community. Despite being a road less traveled, Head indicates that this is definitely a path worth taking as it would allow the traveler to view the yellow daisies along the way.

Dikeledi and Pete are the two characters whom Margaret tells directly she is a Masarwa. At first, their reactions seem similar where both of them are evidently shocked that she would so readily reveal something like that, though in Margaret's mind these kinds of things shouldn't be kept hidden. Dikeledi and Pete's attitudes towards Margaret differ in that the former expresses respect for her being so proud of who she is despite the abuses she constantly receives. Pete on the other hand dehumanizes her and assumes that she somehow cheated to get her position. Before we even see how Dikeledi defends Margaret in the classroom later on, Head indicates that she is someone who Margaret can trust throughout this story. Pete represents how most people in Dilepe would view Margaret: subhuman and undeserving of respect. Head shows how ingrained this caste system is in their community, to the point where her exemplary performance in school is doubted and her own students ridicule her.

In this poem, Kapil uses spacing and breaks in between sentences to affect how images are perceived. Here, the speaker describes a gruesome scene of the aftermath of a mass killing inside a train. Rather than writing "...every person on the train slaughtered" all in one line, Kapil isolates the word "slaughtered" and leaves it on a line of its own, emphasizing how truly brutal this event was. This line contributes to illustrating the burden on the speaker's mother who must live with these horrific memories, as well as the speaker herself who grew up listening to her mother's stories.

This story begins looking through the eyes of Sirajuddin who has just regained consciousness. He awakes not knowing much about the current situation, putting him in a stance similar to the reader. Through these lines, we can imagine and put ourselves in place of this man and his thought process as he tries to figure out what had just happened. These words listed one after another help to generate vague images of the events that led up to this current moment. Generally, lists would be written using commas to separate them, but the use of ellipses imitate him slowly piecing together bits of his memory so he can decide what to do next. This list ends at the name Sakina and cuts to an image of Sirajuddin suddenly coming to a realization, an immediate indication that this person is very important to him.