The poem “Minority” is about a person who feels out of place in society of her birth country. Imtiaz Dharker uses diction, sensory imagery and similes to allow the readers to better comprehend the feeling of being not relevant to others and exclusion in the person’s homeland.
The poem begins with ” I was born a foreigner.” But it is not possible to be born a foreigner, because everyone is born to a certain place that is their homeland. Although, when reading the poem, it is understood that the person does not belong in her country due to being born to an immigrant. Throughout the poem, the narrator uses a lot of personal pronouns such as “I”, this conveys a message to the reader that the person is lonely. The person uses gustatory imagery to convey to the readers that she is foreign by using a simile, “like food cooked in milk of coconut”, which leaves an “unexpected aftertaste”.
This simile explains to the reader that the person is not what people expect in their country just as a comparison to “unexpected aftertaste” to what people would not expect as their stereotypical meal in that country.
