Several terrorist attacks these past few years had origins in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. Just this month, a man tied to last year's Paris attacks was arrested there. Soon afterwards, Brussels itself was struck by a pair of bombings.

Mohamed Zefzaf, an English professor at Mass Bay Community College, was born in Morocco but grew up in Molenbeek. He spoke with WGBH All Things Considered host Barbara Howard and shared his memories of the neighborhood as it was in his youth, his reflections on it now, and his thoughts on what it's like to be a Muslim in the current political climate.