This paper explores the experience of migration from Morocco to Spain as recounted by Rachid Nini in Diario de un ilegal, one of the very few books to have dealt with this recurring headline topic. Nini claims that the text is based on his own experiences as an illegal immigrant in Spain, and finds in the history of Alándalus and in the many legacies that Arab culture has left in Spain a bridge to re-interpret his personal experiences of racism and discrimination in a society which deliberately turns its back on its past and who refuses to look in the face their closest southern neighbors.