Coloured. A simple word. I close my eyes and I see papel picado¹ hanging between colonial buildings over cobbled streets, swaying in a gentle breeze. I see chocolate Smarties lying cosily in a small rectangular box. I see coloured beads threaded side by side, hanging proudly on a strong neck. I smile. 

But I pause. How can a word that sparks simple joy in my heart be so historically charged, so complicated and confusing? Different from the disused term Colored in the United States, in South Africa, where I’m from, the term was used to refer to those of mixed ancestry. Its legal origins can be traced back to the Population Registration Act of 1950, under which Europeans were classified as White and indigenous African communities as Natives. Coloured became the label given to all the imaginable combinations of African, European, and Asian heritage, a mix so complex that neat classification would be tedious and impractical. Today, it is no longer a legal classification, but it still has a strong social presence.

Excerpt from page 277 of the Population Registration Act (1950), showing racial classification categories. Source: copy accessed online, exact source unknown

Nevertheless, this was our reality growing up in the eighties during the height, or perhaps the dusk, of Apartheid in South Africa, a period of legalized racial segregation, discrimination and oppression of non-Whites where the term was used, and in fact is still used today, to refer to people of mixed race. Though still oppressed during Apartheid, Coloureds, who were naturally not on par with Whites, were afforded more rights in terms of education, healthcare, housing and freedom of movement than Black people, that is, those classified as Natives under Apartheid law.  Therefore, many considered it a ‘better’ racial classification than Black, a misguided belief that played nicely into the mainly Dutch European minority government’s strategy of divide and conquer. 

Coloured in South Africa was and still is more than just a racial classification; it is a whole culture of its own. That said, Coloured identity is not uniform, and some expressions vary across regions in South Africa. However, the classification holds relevance even to this day because of the divisions imposed by the system of segregation, the designated areas we were allowed to live in and it influenced our cultural identity: the languages we spoke (Coloured people in South Africa speak English or Afrikaans² as a first language), our culinary traditions, even the universal games we played were somewhat different. 

For me, this classification was not just a social label; it was personal. Under Apartheid, I was classified as Coloured. I am the product of the union between my German immigrant father and Zulu mother, from a Zulu-speaking tribe native to South Africa. To clarify, when I say I was classified as Coloured, it does not mean that I myself consider it a better racial classification than being Black. I do not, but little did I know that my parentage and the racism within the Coloured community itself would cause me to question my identity and deeply impact my sense of belonging. 

The system of racial classification during Apartheid was so arbitrary. On my block, I saw people who were outwardly Khoisan, Ndebele and Nguni, Scandinavian, Chinese, and Indian. All of them were categorized as Coloured. This meant that an individual could exploit legal loopholes to be classified as another race for their benefit, or conversely be forced into a ‘less favourable’ category, if their physical appearance made their heritage seem so obvious, or unambiguous. Even though my mother lived as a Coloured woman with a mixed-race child in Newclare, a Coloured neighbourhood in Johannesburg, she could not completely deny nor forget her heritage. 

One way it expressed itself was through the food she prepared. Most of our neighbours ate Indian or Cape Malay curries and Sunday roasts, along with the traditional pap en wors³, which we ate as well. Nevertheless, Friday nights were fast-food nights in many Coloured homes in our neighbourhood and surrounding areas. Families typically bought fish and chips with spicy masala, doused with white vinegar, often served with Russians (sausages) and eaten with slices of machine-cut white bread. There were also dagwoods, a kind of stacked hamburger and egg sandwich,  and bunny chows, hollowed-out loaves of bread filled with chips or curry. 

Ma would rarely spend money on such things. When my father was not joining us for dinner at our flat, she made chips, slicing potatoes into imperfect strips, which she deep fried in oil and then, against custom, drenched in brown vinegar. This meant that the chips neither remained crisp nor developed the characteristic limpness of slap chips⁴. Ma did not discriminate. Chips were chips. (Were all Coloureds, Coloureds?) She served hers with slices of brown bread, the denseness and nuttiness of which did not pair as well as the usual accompaniment: airy slices of bland white bread. I, however, knew the difference.

A small taste of home, made with love by Ma. (Image generated with Gemini)

Sometimes, when Ma was not in the mood to cook after a full day’s work as a receptionist-bookkeeper, she bought a 500ml carton of maas, a creamy fermented milk drink, at the same corner cafe and mixed it with brown bread, which she had roughly torn into unequal pieces. On its own, it was a sour mass of soggy, yeasty bread, but a couple of teaspoons of sugar (brown⁵, of course) transformed it into a palatable supper. I knew that most of my Coloured neighbours and classmates were not eating this.

Another way Ma’s heritage revealed itself was through language. Ma, who was trying to blend in with the Coloureds and shed the parts of her Zulu identity that aided this process, understandably did not teach me any Zulu. And I did not spend enough time with my father at home, so I picked up only a few German words and phrases from him. English, being the universal language that it is, thus became the language of communication in our home. At school, I was enrolled in the English stream, where all my subjects were taught in English, except for Afrikaans, which was a compulsory second language for English speakers at Coloured schools. 

Though we spoke English at home, my mother spoke Zulu to her family and regularly watched Zulu TV shows. We often watched the news in both English and Zulu, and Ma and her sister were loyal viewers of traditional music shows, which exposed me to genres like Isicathamiya, Mbaqanga, and Maskandi, a genre of Zulu folk music. One of their favourite artists was Phuzekhemisi. I remember him wearing an animal-skin umquele⁶ on his head, plucking at his guitar rhythmically, ‘talking’ in Zulu. 

I did not understand the Zulu lyrics, and I did not like the music. This was not Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper or the Commodores, who were popular and acceptable in our neighbourhood in those days. As I grew older, I remained embarrassed about this part of my heritage, but I began to enjoy and develop an appreciation of this music and that of singers like Jabu Khanyile and Bayete, and their hits like Umkhaya-lo. You’ve probably never heard of these talented artists and nor had many of my neighbours. 

Most of my Coloured friends watched more White South African, American or mixed TV and had decoders. My mother refused to get one because she preferred to save money, and honestly, having grown up with so little, she had no interest in acquiring things which were not ‘necessary’. Along with eighties classics like Growing Pains and Who’s the Boss, which we watched on the SABC, the South African national broadcaster, we watched TV shows like Emzini Wezinsizwa, which focused on the experiences of a group of ethnically diverse migrant labourers in a Johannesburg hostel for men. I found it amusing, even though I regularly had to ask Ma to translate. I can still hear echoes of the theme music in my head. 

These, however, were the least of my concerns. Ma spoke English with a distinct accent of someone who spoke an indigenous language as their mother tongue; her pronunciation was influenced by the sounds of her native Zulu. Vegetables became ve-ji-te-bulls. The became there (without the rolled r at the end). Then there were little things, like saying Hau! as an exclamation of surprise, the way English speakers use Oh! or Wow! Coloured people in our area typically just said Eish!, which was used for situations both positive or negative, similar to the Mexican Orale! To me, this was a dead giveaway that she was not Coloured. 

To add to this, she couldn’t speak Afrikaans. You see, speaking Afrikaans fluently when one did not speak English well became a defining feature of being Coloured. Ma understood well enough, but, at the time, her spoken production was limited and broken; her grammar and pronunciation often a source of amusement for her few Afrikaans-speaking friends, but they never judged her for it. 

When Ma and I were around her friends, these things did not bother me much, though I did start correcting her pronunciation and small grammar mistakes as my developing Grade-1 knowledge qualified me to do so. Ma’s friends who she had gotten to know when she had recently arrived from the ‘farms’ or on her daily commute to work, accepted the fact that she was not Coloured and were discreet enough for the most part not to say anything about it, at least, as far as I know. 

As for our neighbours, they were all well aware that Ma was not Coloured, and my family was undoubtedly a topic of gossip on our block. Sometimes, as my friends and I made mud cakes in the local park, one would ‘accuse’ me of having a Zulu mother, probably having heard it from a parent or directly from me before I knew ‘better’. My mother and aunt warned me not to say anything. They were both proud of their Zulu culture. They simply knew the problems it could create for me. 

Soon enough, my childlike innocence gave way to the awkwardness of adolescence and the need to be like everyone else. I felt uneasy when introducing Ma and my aunt to new friends and dreaded parents' meetings at school. Everyone knew. Not wanting to be too direct, people would say, “Your mother’s accent is different,” or ask nosily, “Where is your mother from? She isn’t from Newclare, is she?” Knowing full well what they meant, I would simply say that she was not from Johannesburg, that her accent was a remnant of her upbringing in Durban, which was more acceptable than Wasbank, the town Ma was actually from. That would put an end to the discussion. 

I was learning to navigate the landscape of South African race relations. While there were a few other children in my neighbourhood who had Italian, German, or Swiss fathers, all of them had Coloured or Indian mothers or those where the Black roots were more diluted. Thus, not surprisingly, I was not bothered by my father’s English, which he spoke with a characteristic German accent. He was German, something to be proud of and a source of admiration from my classmates. How well the Apartheid government had indoctrinated us all. 

Indeed, when we visited Ma’s relatives in the Black townships of Soweto, I was the attraction, treated with favour. As a young child, I liked the sweets and cakes I received because they considered me, the English-speaking, lighter-skinned relation, as ‘special’. If it weren’t for Ma or my aunt, I would never have had to lift a finger. 

But after a while, the attention became annoying. Everybody, even strangers on the street, wanted to speak to me, asking what felt like a million questions, when all I wanted to do was play with the other children who hung around, waiting as I went through the customary ‘interrogation’ before the interrogator took a hint and dismissed me from the stand. I’d like to think that it was just because I was a sweet, well-behaved child, but I know it was the subliminal influence of Apartheid.

On these visits, I witnessed the poison of Apartheid in action. My mother’s cousins were ‘proud’ to tell their neighbours that we were related. At the time, many of the township dwellers lived on the breadline. Even in the eighties and nineties, they cooked on Primus or coal stoves, used candles to light their homes at night, bathed in large plastic or metal dishes with hot water boiled on the stove and still had to go to the outhouse to do their business. Even though I was young, the disparity in the quality of life I witnessed during these visits always left me with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, a stark reminder of our reality. 

Visiting my father’s home in Krugersdorp, a White suburb in those days, was seeing how the other half lived, actually a small minority of the South African population, to be more precise. I felt privileged to have access to this world, a world of spacious houses with expansive manicured lawns and flowerbeds, where I had a bedroom to myself. I felt safe, a world away from the constant threat of crime that was part of our daily lives in Newclare. 

My father spoiled me, but he was strict in ways that Ma wasn’t and a little bossy for my liking. Whereas I could argue with Ma, what he said went, and I did not like this. So, the couple of times a week I saw him helped us to maintain the love and a little sweetness in our relationship. 

Naturally, I shared all the details with my classmates when I was at school. The life my father afforded us was also a subject of my writing in school, so my teachers were informed, too. This was how I validated the experience, as visits to my father’s home were clandestine affairs. If I did not tell others, would it still be real? While I was openly welcomed on my mother’s side, in my father’s world, no one could know of my existence or his relationship with my mother, for his safety and ours, because interracial relations were punishable by law, and those caught up in them could spend time in prison. 

So, where did I belong? I was the textbook definition of Coloured. Yet, almost no one in my father’s world knew I existed. And I had to hide my mother’s true ancestry. Ma was dealing with her own demons, family trauma, and the groundwork had not yet been laid for open acceptance and equal recognition of Black people in South Africa. 

I kept everything bottled inside. 

I saw.

And, … I smiled. 

To be continued…

Footnotes:

¹ Thin colored tissue paper with different designs and scenes cut into it.

² A version of Dutch which evolved in South Africa with the arrival of the Dutch settlers. It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia.

³ Pap is a mass of maize, similar to polenta, prepared by cooking cornmeal with water. Wors is a South African Dutch sausage made with ground beef and/or pork, and mixed with a blend of spices.

⁴ In South Africa, we eat chips, British-style French fries, which often become limp (slap in Afrikaans) because of the added vinegar and being wrapped in butcher’s paper for transport.

⁵ My mother considered brown bread and sugar healthier than the white versions, as they were less refined.

⁶ A circular headband made from animal fur, typically cow, goat or leopard skin (for royalty), worn by Zulu men as part of traditional garb.