Agenda UV

Documentary presentation.

Algèria, el meu país. Història i memòria de l’emigració valenciana a Orà i Alger (Algeria, my country. History and memory of Valencian emigration to Oran and Algiers).

With the intervention of Juli Esteve, scriptwriter and director of the documentary. Antonio Ariño, Vice-Principal for Culture and Equality.

Free admission, limited seating.

Between 1830, year of the French invasion, and 1962, thousands of Valencian people emigrated to Algeria fleeing poverty, lack of future or political persecution. The colony thus became a promised land where they found prosperity, refuge and modernity. But Europeans were only 10 percent of the population, which was mostly Arab and Amazigh and did not enjoy the same standard of living. Neither of them knew how to find the formula for living together in peace. After an especially cruel eight-year war, Algeria became an independent country in July 1962 and the Europeans suffered a mass exodus. The Valencian people in Algeria and their descendants settled again in Valencia or in France. And they had to start over. In Algeria they had left behind many years of work, many illusions, youth and sometimes also life. After 50 years, this is their story. This is their memory.