Five Reflections on 9/11 — By People Who Were Born After 9/11

There’s a broad assumption that young people don’t know much about Sept. 11 because we didn’t live through it ourselves. But the truth isn’t that simple. We understand more about 9/11 — and have internalized the feelings of that day much more deeply — than older folks might expect.

For young people, 9/11 sits at a blurry line of history and memory. Although it happened before we were born, we were surrounded by it as we grew up. In school, we watched documentaries and looked at photos that showed us the tragedy of the towers from every angle. And while we did not experience the collective grief of 9/11 ourselves, we are still able to access it. For me, it was through personal stories from family members who lived in New York City. The most striking memories were from my father, an intensive care unit doctor, who recalls bracing to treat hundreds of hurt people pulled from the rubble. Ultimately, there was a wave of sadness in his hospital as it became clear that very few people had survived under the debris.

My generation has also analyzed the historical fallout from 9/11 in great depth — and perhaps with a more critical eye than many people who were alive then.

In a world that is still, 25 years later, shaped by 9/11, we occupy a complicated space — having emotional proximity to an event we did not actually witness. Our combination of deeply understanding and not remembering makes our perspective unique — and valuable.

Anusha Mathur is an assistant editor for Washington Sun Perspectives.

I can’t recall the exact year, but I likely first learned about Sept. 11 on an anniversary while I was in middle school. I was too young then to grapple with what the tragedy meant — but now, when I look back at the events that occurred that horrific day, I see more than just the countless lives lost and heroic sacrifices. I see how America’s response shaped my generation’s experience of security and privacy.

As digital natives, everyone my age is aware of the panopticon created through the cooperation of Big Tech and the government. Today, surveillance is everywhere — from smart devices to Flock cameras to TSA checks.

There are many reasons that surveillance has increased, starting with the money that the private sector can make from accessing our data. What we sometimes fail to realize is that this reality also came about, in part, because of 9/11.

For people born after Sept. 11, surveillance is simply expected. These tools have arguably protected us and made America more secure. But they have come at a price. It often feels as though, to live in a safe country, we have to be willing to sacrifice our privacy. That tension has pushed me to become militant about protecting my data and information. It’s a ripple of 9/11 that my generation has always lived with — and can’t really imagine living without.

Denzel Massaley recently graduated from Penn State.

I grew up in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white, rural town. My grandfather moved there in 1972 after being hired as its second pediatrician. He was a Shia Muslim from India, short in stature, with a long beard and a golden kufi. He did not look like the rest of Stroudsburg, but he quickly became a pillar of the community. He practiced medicine with warmth and devotion, building relationships that seemed to dissolve whatever biases his patients might have carried.

I was 11 years old when I first came to believe that 9/11 had disrupted this dynamic. It was January 2014. My parents had taken us to a special screening of “Howl’s Moving Castle.” Before the movie, they found a quiet corner to perform Maghrib prayers. As they laid out their prayer mats, a security officer approached, his hand on his weapon. When my parents explained they were praying, he responded, “Not here.”

The police were eventually called, and they sided with my family. The security officer was escorted out. But the incident showed me there were people and forces trying to uproot us.

Fortunately, my grandfather taught us that the answer was not to retreat, but to grow deeper roots. So my family and I remain: gathering for Thanksgivings, returning for family reunions, and continuing to make Stroudsburg our home.

Taha Vahanvaty recently graduated from American University.

I learned about 9/11 through quiet conversations in a rural town in Idaho. I was too small to comprehend what a tragedy that day had been. But key phrases would always float around: New York. Twin Towers. Hijacking. I would piece together what I heard until I had reached an age where I could handle the full details: the morning broadcasts, the firsthand accounts, the videos of people choosing to jump rather than burn.

Whenever I would hear these recountings, they were laced with sadness and reverence for the sheer devastation. But there was always something else. The way in which the word “Islam” was punctuated — like it was synonymous with danger and destruction. Or, more explicitly, the way the words “terrorist” and “Muslim” were used interchangeably. I’m not Muslim, but — as one of the very few Black children in a small, close-minded town — the sense of otherness and isolation that I saw American Muslims experiencing in the years after 9/11 was familiar to me.

In the face of tragedy, we either come together or fall apart. And in the days and weeks following one of the worst days in American history, the nation rallied. But eventually the anguish turned into blame. And that blame turned into anger. And that anger turned into hatred.

Sept. 11 was marked by the grit and resilience that is the American spirit. But as I grew up, I saw that its aftermath was marked by a sense of prejudice — against those who look and pray differently — that is also all too American.

Seyi Arogundade recently graduated from the University of Idaho. She now works in politics in Boise.

I do not remember the first time I heard the phrase “9/11,” though I do remember gradually realizing that, for most Americans, it was more than just a date. I learned about it in school, watching documentaries and archival television footage, and through conversations with adults who always seemed to remember exactly where they were that morning.

But while 9/11 was a part of history to me, the wars that followed were not. I grew up in a country shaped by the Global War on Terror, even though for much of my childhood, I was too young to understand its origins. The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the deaths of American soldiers, the thousands of civilians being killed overseas by American bombs, and the constant language of fighting terrorism and defending national security were simply part of the world in which I came of age.

As I learned more, I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable with the way our role in the world was being presented to me. I was being fed a narrative portraying us as the defenders of freedom and democracy while I was simultaneously reading about the enormous civilian and humanitarian costs of the wars we were actively fighting, supposedly in the name of those ideals. That contradiction has shaped much of the way I view my country.

Maybe I only have a sense of cynicism about our country’s role in the world because I was lucky enough to not have to live through 9/11 itself — but I remain cynical all the same.

Ashton Pack is a graduate student at Marshall University studying public administration.