Canisia Lubrin’s poem “The Mongrel” explores how colonization and systemic discrimination have led to cultural fragmentation. Those whose land was colonized feel alienated from their roots because their ancestors were forcibly moved around and their cultures were actively erased. When people were enslaved and taken away from their land, their descendants were abruptly cut off from their homeland. This relates to Vijay Mishra’s theory of “The Diaspora Imaginary” because Mishra claims that our conceptions of diasporas must account for any group that defines themselves as living in displacement. Therefore, even people whose ancestors were the ones who were physically displaced must still confront the long-term negative effects of diasporas, and we cannot be a “species of amnesiacs,” as Lubrin calls us, and ignore this.

This poem was published in 2017, which makes the temporal context the present day. This is interesting to consider, as we often think of diasporas, especially in Africa, as things that happened long ago. But analyzing the temporal context of this poem alongside Mishra’s theory, we see that it is important to consider how people today are still struggling with the negative effects of African colonization. Consider how around the world today, the Black community still has to fight to prove that their lives matter. This shows how they are still on a certain level treated like the Mongrel in Lubrin’s poem because of the racism and colonization that began long ago. They are also still dealing with the cultural fragmentation that resulted from colonization, which suggests that Mishra’s claim about expanding our understanding of diasporas is more important than ever.