aida

Aida Alami

Contributing Writer

Aida Alami is a Marrakesh-based freelance journalist who’s frequently on the road, reporting from North Africa, France, and the Caribbean. She regularly contributes to the New York Times, and her work has also been published by the NYR Daily, Middle East Eye, Al Jazeera English, and Foreign Policy. She earned her bachelor’s degree in media studies at Hunter College and her master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University. She mainly reports on human rights, politics, immigration, and racism. These days, Alami spends a lot of time in France, where she is directing a documentary feature on antiracism activists and police violence.

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‘Trauma is inherited and we can’t heal unless we learn’

By Aida Alami | November 13, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘Trauma is inherited and we can’t heal unless we learn’

MEE speaks to Somali multimedia artist, Ifrah Mansour, about her play, ‘How to Have Fun in a Civil War’ and her work on intergenerational trauma Ifrah Mansour was five years old when civil war broke out in Somalia, in 1991. Her family had just returned to Mogadishu from Saudi Arabia, where she was born. An estimated 350,000 people died by…

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A Black Minneapolis Artist Brings Hidden Communities to Light

By Aida Alami | August 21, 2019 | Comments Off on A Black Minneapolis Artist Brings Hidden Communities to Light

Bobby Rogers’s art finds beauty and creativity in unseen communities, from black Muslims to Minneapolis gang members to faces of police brutality protesters. Three years ago on a hot summer day, Philando Castile was shot and killed by police officer Jeronimo Yanez in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb near Minneapolis. Bobby Rogers had recently…

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Somali and American: Portrait of a Minnesota Community

By Aida Alami | July 2, 2019 | Comments Off on Somali and American: Portrait of a Minnesota Community
Fosia Omar, 20, enjoys a conversation with friends while waiting for the sun to set to break the fast for the day on May 25, 2018. The Waite Park resident is a student at St. Cloud State University and is planning on majoring in psychology.

Refugees often say that war feels like a wave of violence washing over them, leaving behind death and destruction. The feeling was no different for Katra Ali Hethar, who fled war-torn Somalia in 1991 with her nine small children. Being responsible for so many lives was a logistical nightmare. But even in moments of emergency,…

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Laila Lalami: ‘Whoever tells the story controls the world’

By Aida Alami | May 25, 2019 | Comments Off on Laila Lalami: ‘Whoever tells the story controls the world’

The Moroccan-American author talks about her new novel, in which she gives voice to a wide range of characters, including a racist American. Laila Lalami is never in a hurry to finish writing a book. A disciplined author, she spends months, sometimes years, developing carefully crafted narratives and finding joy in the company of the…

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