But in ’66 it was declared a whites-only area. The apartheid government swept in and forcibly removed more than sixty thousand people, pulling apart homes, communities, schools, places of worship, families. The evictees were resettled across the Cape Flats, conveniently far away from the white city. People had to catch crowded trains and ride for hours into town every day to service the whites. Me and Mimi came to Canada before that happened, but my sister, Darryl’s aunt, her family was evicted. Their home was demolished to rubble. That medallion was so Darryl would remember his roots.”
