There is something eerily familiar about the narrative that immigrants, documented or not, are the source of our pain in South Africa, with the phrase 'Abahambe' gaining dangerous traction.

When I was growing up, the first "strange" people I inherited from village folklore were the AmaMpondo.

I first met them not in books, politics or lecture halls, but during cattle herding. They entered my childhood world as figures of ridicule. I was told they spoke funny. I was told they were different. Later, when I could walk longer distances, I came face to face with AmaMpondo, who were cane cutters -- hard, lowly work in the eyes of those who had the luxury of laughing. In truth, they were dressed up in crazy ways and worked like machines.

The stereotype appeared to confirm itself.

Then came Amankula (a derogatory term) for South Africans of Indian origin.

The story was always told with great comic detail. You would go into a shop to buy trousers. One Indian would hold the trousers from behind. When you turned back, another would pull them from the front. By the time you left, you had bought trousers twice your size. The message was that Indians are cunning. Beware!

We laughed until our lungs surrendered.

There was also onqingile (derogatory term for non-heterosexual people), the strange being said to have both female and male genitalia....