It is well known to scholars that the troops enforcing the French empire in Vietnam included soldiers from other French colonial territories, such as Algeria, Morocco, and Senegal. Less is known, however, about the fate of these soldiers after 1954. In Casablanca-Hanoi: Une porte dérobée sur des histoires postcoloniale [Casablanca-Hanoi: A Back Door to Postcolonial History], historian Nelcya Delanoë and anthropologist Caroline Grillot address this gap by tracing the legacy of a group of Moroccan soldiers who deserted the French Army, rallied to the Việt Minh in 1946, and remained in Vietnam after the conclusion of the Geneva Accords in 1954. In 1972, they returned to Morocco, bringing their Vietnamese families with them, although some members of their families chose to stay behind. As the subtitle indicates, the lives of these soldiers and their descendants offer a “back door to postcolonial histories.” Through a combination of history, memoir, and cultural...

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