Ojalá Supieras (I Wish You Knew)

UCLA Library presents a screening of Ojalá Supieras (I Wish You Knew, United States, 2025), a documentary film which excavates the long-suppressed history of Islam in colonial Mexico. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and inquisitorial records, director Dr. Mariam Saada reconstructs the lives of those persecuted for crypto-Islamic practice under colonial rule—restoring to view communities whose stories were deliberately buried.

The film reframes the cultural origins of Viceregal Mexico, revealing the intertwined presence of Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Indigenous peoples at the heart of colonial society.

Dr. Saada will introduce the film, with a post-screening Q&A to follow.

A selection of UCLA Library holdings curated by International and Area Studies staff will be on display.

English. 70 minutes.

RSVP is required. Walk-ins will be accommodated as space allows. Click the More Details button to register or RSVP now(opens in a new tab).

Special thanks to our community partner: UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies

Dr. Mariam Saada is a mother, professor, researcher, lecturer, and screenwriter. She was born in Paris and is multilingual in French, Arabic, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Historical Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Spanish from California State University, Los Angeles.

Her academic career has been devoted to uncovering the connections between the Arab-Islamic world and Hispanic civilization. In 2016, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Mexico, where she examined Arabic and Islamic documentary traces in Colonial Mexico (1570–1820) across seventeen archives throughout the country. She is the author of ¡Allah! ¡Hashem! ¡Dios! El español no es tan español published by Editorial Dunken, Buenos Aires, 2019. She has also published nine academic articles in specialized journals.