Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, Lewitt emigrated to Australia and began life anew.  “Smugglers,” however, while reflecting her own experiences as an immigrant in a new country, represents the immigrant experience writ large.  Especially as a first-generation immigrant, the experiences associated with the process of leaving one’s country of birth to begin a new life abroad is colored by the uncertainties that greet each new immigrant and by the prejudices they face while attempting to assimilate into their new communities.  As Lewitt writes early in “Smugglers,”

“We smuggled in

Values and slanted opinions.” 

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:

“We were left alone

 And wherever we go,

 We leave a trail

 Of unsuspected contraband,

 Sometimes polluting, sometimes enriching

 Our adopted Home.”

The use of the ‘smuggling’ metaphor to denote the immigrant experience is intended to convey the resentments felt by immigrants suspected of bringing with them alien ideas as well as substances (i.e., drugs).  Lewitt takes pains, however, to note that immigrants bring positive as well as negative influences, and that being treated as anonymous cargo entering a port, while dehumanizing, is simply part of the process.