SOUTH AFRICA: A TALE OF SIX FAMILIES : SOUTH AFRICA: FORGING A NATION : FAMILY PORTRAIT / THE DESAIS

Manu, 54, owner of a small print shop

Minnie, 44, partner in the shop

Leila and Pravina, both 19, students

Sarita, 6, student

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Home: Suburban Cape Town

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Politics: Favor the African National Congress

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Background: Manu’s parents came to Durban from India in 1935. Minnie was classified by apartheid as “Cape Colored,” the product of centuries of intermarriage between Europeans and indigenous peoples.

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Manu Desai: “Under apartheid, there were no two kinds of black. Black was black, and we all suffered terrible injustices.... The turning point came when whites and blacks finally recognized each other as fellow South Africans.”