A marginal group is a group or gategory of people who have been pushed to the outside. There is a "growing genocidal level of destruction predicated on the premise (that) there are marginalized youth with no jobs or future, and therefore expendable" (Luis J. Rodriguez, Always Running, 1993). In the late 1960s these terms, originally used by sociologists, were incorporated into the talk of Black Power, feminist, and gay rights groups to call attention to their positions as minorities. Although marginality has traditionally been thought of as a position of social conflict and psychological difficultiy, marginal groups or individuals may also be viewed as agents of change and adaptive links to the dominant group.

A clear and decisive example of Marginalization is illustrated in Henry Roth's Call it Sleep. The book speaks about the story of a family that immigrated to the United States. Here is a passage from the Introduction by Alfred Kazin, "Mother and son speak Yiddish together. It is made to sound effortlessly noble, beautifully expressive, almost liturgical by contrast with the guttural street English that surrounds David in the street. We are startled when he talks in the same horrible, mutilated tones away from Mama. Then he is with strangers. English is the stranger in this novel located in New York, English the adopted language, tough and brazen."