Bread and Roses on 04/13/12

Dr. Laila Amine on Arab immigration and race relations in France. Bread and Roses' host Del Criscenzo asks Laila, her compatriot, about the history of French Imperialism and Arab immigration to France. They discuss racism and race relations in their country as well as Maghrebi literature and its contributions to denouncing historical silencing. Laila Amine specializes in twentieth-century African American and African Diaspora literature with particular interest in comparative race and ethnic studies. Her current project, Algerian Paris: Belonging beyond Diaspora uncovers how the Algerian war (1954-1962) and its legacies shaped representations of a transnational Paris in African American, French, and Maghrebi cultural texts. Laila Amine was born in Brest, France in 1977. Her parents emigrated from Morocco in the mid 1960s. Her father worked in the building industry. After studying English at the Université Victor Segalen, she lived in Luton, England and Santa Barbara California, before starting her graduate studies at Indiana University. She is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.