THE EDUCATION OF BELONGING AND FEAR

How Hostility Shapes the Childhood and Identity of Immigrant Children

Amid the rising wave of anti-immigrant demonstrations across South Africa, public discourse has focused on pressing issues such as unemployment, crime, systemic failures, and illegal immigration. These challenges need to be discussed honestly and addressed fully. What is often overlooked, however, are the experiences of immigrant children navigating this harsh reality.

For many of them, South Africa is the only home they have ever known. It is where they build friendships, worry about upcoming exams, and picture their futures. They attend the same schools and follow the same daily routines as their peers, yet they grow up with the unspoken understanding that, despite all this, their sense of belonging is never truly secure.

No one ever told me that being a foreigner was something to hide. It was something I learned slowly through everyday interactions. I noticed which accents attracted unwanted attention, how quickly people asked, "Where are you really from?", and how casually slurs like makwerekwere were used. Long before I understood xenophobia, I had already learned that blending in felt much safer than standing out.

I became careful about the language I chose to speak in public, as my native tongue could reveal where I came from before I ever had the chance to introduce myself. Even my name became something I learned to adapt, it was shortened and anglicised, creating distance between me and my Zimbabwean roots. None of these were conscious decisions at first, but they gradually became habits shaped by the experiences of other immigrants around me.

Lessons beyond the classroom

We often talk about education as though it begins in the classroom. We measure students’ success through examination results, literacy levels, and access to resources. Yet education begins much earlier. It begins with whether a child feels safe enough to ask questions, participate, make mistakes, and simply exist without fear.

Safety and belonging are among the most neglected foundations of education. A child who worries that speaking their home language might expose them to ridicule is already carrying a burden unrelated to mathematics or science. A student who hesitates before introducing themselves because their name might reveal where their family comes from enters the classroom distracted by concerns no curriculum can address. Before these children can focus on studying, they must first learn to manage fear.

Learning to live in fear 

Across South Africa, cases continue to emerge of children facing barriers to school enrolment due to nationality or documentation status. Regardless of legal complexity, the impact is shouldered by children who did not choose the circumstances of their birth or migration. These barriers not only shape their access to education, but also their understanding of where they belong in society.

In 2008, I was seven years old when South Africa experienced one of its deadliest waves of xenophobic violence. It was the first time I heard the word xenophobia. Before then, I only knew that being a foreigner made me different. Then, suddenly, I understood that it could also make me a target.

One image has stayed with me ever since, that of Ernesto Nhamuave, a Mozambican man burned alive during the violence. I was too young to understand the political and economic forces behind the attacks, but I did understand enough to know that he had lost his life simply because of where he came from.

For many immigrant families, 2008 was not an isolated event. Uncertainty continued, resurfacing whenever tensions flared again in the years that followed. In 2015, when xenophobic violence spread once again across parts of the country, the crisis did not only exist on a screen. It sat at our kitchen table as my mother wrestled with whether it was safe enough to send us to school that week, or whether keeping us home was the only way to protect us.

The violence eventually subsided, but the fear did not.

Although my family had all the right documentation to live in South Africa, our legal status did little to bring comfort. Carrying my passport and visa whenever I left home became second nature. It was not because I expected to be questioned every day, but because I never knew when I might be asked to prove I had a right to be there.

Nevertheless, I soon realised that, to many people, your accent, surname, or language mattered more than the papers you carried. A visa stamp offered little protection from assumptions, prejudice, or violence. As a child, I accepted this as normal. Looking back, I realise how unusual it was to grow up thinking that simply existing in public, or even at school, sometimes required proof that you had a right to be there.

Me, Mazvita Joana Muzondo, at seven years old - Cape Town, South Africa

The weight of two realities

At the same time, it would be disingenuous to discuss these tensions without acknowledging the realities many South Africans face. The country's unemployment rate currently stands at 32.7%, affecting more than eight million people, many of whom support entire families.

The hardest hit are those aged 15 to 24, with youth unemployment exceeding 60%. For many, the future seems increasingly uncertain. They did everything society asked of them. They stayed in school, pursued higher education, earned qualifications, and believed that this path would open doors to a brighter future. But for far too many, those very doors have remained closed. These frustrations are real and must not be dismissed.

When systems fail to generate enough opportunities, grievances rise and people begin searching for visible explanations. Corruption, policy failures, and economic crises are difficult to confront because their causes are often complex and less apparent. Migrant communities, by contrast, are part of everyday life. The gardener arriving early in the morning, the domestic worker balancing multiple homes, the street vendor trying to earn enough for the week, and the construction worker sending money home to family across the border all draw greater attention. In times of uncertainty, it becomes easier to direct anger at the people we can see than at the systems that continue to fail us. 

A future on the line

Leaving home is never an easy decision. It is often driven by necessity, political unrest, or lack of opportunity, when staying no longer seems like a viable option. None of this removes the responsibility of governments to address unemployment, inequality, and failing public services. South Africans deserve better. But children should never have to carry the consequences of failures they had no part in creating.

South Africa's future will not only be shaped by the policies it adopts or the economy it builds. It will also be shaped by the childhoods it chooses to protect. The children sitting in classrooms today, whether their families came from Johannesburg, Harare, Maputo, Lilongwe, or beyond will become tomorrow's teachers, healthcare workers, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, and leaders.

The way they are treated today shapes the way they come to see the country tomorrow. Every child who feels welcomed into a classroom and can live carefree within their community is more likely to believe they have a place in society beyond it. Every child who feels excluded carries those lessons with them long after their school years have ended.

Every child deserves to live and learn in safety and dignity, regardless of where they or their parents were born. No child's future should be defined by circumstances they never chose.