Interview Segment

Ayesha Hoorzook interviewed by Matthew Millar
October 8, 2006 Johannesburg, South Africa.
"'Get out, get off from here! This park's not meant for you. This place is for whites only... And I knew, my dad had always said so ..." [3:11]

Ms. Hoorzook tells a story of growing up under apartheid when she and her cousin went to a whites-only park early one morning and were beaten up by two men who told them to get out.

Ms. Hoorzook grew up in Johannesburg in a community that was later declared as a white area, so her Indian family had to move. She experienced the irrationality and difficulties of racial classification; marrying a man from Cape Town, their first child was classified as Indian and their second child as Cape Malay. It took half a year to have the second child reclassified so he could go to school with his sibling in the community where they lived. Hoorzook became a history teacher in order to teach students about their country’s past. She also serves as a guide in the Apartheid Museum.

Collection of Kelly Brisbois and Trevor Getz

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