An Essay: Don’t Forget the Children of 9/11—and Their New World of Mistrust

, a 2011 graduate of Helix Charter High School now attending college in Colorado, shares her thoughts on this anniversary of a national tragedy:

As the 10th anniversary of the September 11^th terrorist attacks approaches, and especially after the recent capture of Osama Bin Laden, many people have been reflecting on how they felt the day of the attacks, and how they have been affected since.

Each American was affected in a different way, some more personal than others, but there is a group of people that are often forgotten, who may be affected much more than they realize. I write on behalf of them, to tell their story that often goes unheard.

We were elementary school children when it happened. I was only 8 years old, a carefree third-grader who didn’t understand what war was, and I certainly couldn’t have told you what countries were in the Middle East or find it on a map. For children so young, the actual terrorist attack was not that influential upon us.

I remember thinking that the plane crashes into the World Trade Towers were simply an accident, and I remember watching a clip of it on the television before going outside to play. We were blissfully ignorant, and we just simply didn’t understand what 9/11 really meant.

Some children were more immediately affected by what had happened. There were some who lost loved ones in the attacks, but there were many more of us who had family or friends that enlisted in the armed forces and were deployed. But the true influence of 9/11 would not be realized until we were matured.

Most of us realized the true depth of what had happened around the time we entered high school, when the topic of the attacks and the ongoing wars became commonplace in the classroom.

What many people do not realize is that current high school students and young college students have grown up in a world of great mistrust. We are not the first generation, as our parents grew up during Vietnam, and our grandparents through World War II.

But we have been raised in a world where every person is a potential threat. We have never known what the difference is between “security” and “heightened security,” since we’ve only witnessed heightened security. We’ve always gone through rigorous screening at airports;  that’s just normal.

And all this controversy over the new TSA regulations goes relatively unnoticed by our generation. When haven’t we been screened and searched? But it’s not just mistrust confined to travel security.

What’s more is that, most unfortunately, our generation has been raised to distrust and dislike an entire race and religion of peoples. I think back on a particular memory that sickens me every time I relive it.

In elementary school, there was a girl whose last name was Hussein. She had gone to school with us since kindergarten. But after 9/11, when the name Saddam Hussein was associated with bad people and bad things, we teased the poor girl about her name, asking her if she was related to Saddam.

I haven’t seen her since elementary school, and I often wonder if those comments hurt her as much as I suspect they may have. That’s just a small example of what our generation has become accustomed to.

There is a prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent, and of Muslim faith. It was the same with the Japanese in the 1940s, and the Vietnamese in the late 1960s. People look back at the Japanese internment camps and condemn that choice, and they call it prejudiced. Yet it exists today, prevalent among people my age.

For some of us, our reactions are unconscious. We do not assume that every person who practices Islam or is from the Middle East is a terrorist. But then why do we make general assumptions and stereotype? Why do we feel uneasy and mistrust them? Because that’s how we have been raised, as 9/11 has taught us.

We’ve also learned a lesson about our own country. We have learned how quickly a country can become united in the wake of a tragedy, and how equally divided we can become in the face of war. Ten years ago, America’s patriotism was at an extreme high, and while it exists today, the country is now plagued with party politics and gridlock. It’s something to be expected in every democratic system, but it’s a lesson that people my age can learn from firsthand.

And yet, despite the negative impacts, our generation has also been able to experience the jubilation of triumph. Most of us watched President Obama take that long walk to the podium and announce the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden. We could celebrate together in this victory, and hope that things will begin to improve.

It wasn’t a celebration of the ending of war, and we were aware of this. But the capture of a man who had become synonymous with death and terrorism throughout our childhood was something to celebrate. We knew who Bin Laden was, and the danger he represented, before we were reading Shakespeare or taking Biology.

The capture of Bin Laden brought many people my age to a realization that we were now growing up—and growing into a world where we would have to carry some of the burdens that the terrorist attacks have brought.

Our generation is coming to the age where we will be sending off friends that we have grown up with to fight for our country. After my high school graduation last June, former classmates packed up and went to training camps, even though it felt as if we were just playing the card game War on the playground.

And most of us are coming to, or have already reached, the age where we start to take over some financial support of the war. For the first time, our generation is taking the step from being the innocent children who had no idea what 9/11 truly meant, to the young adults who will deal with the aftermath of September 11^th. It is slowly becoming our job to support our country financially, and to support the veterans of these wars emotionally.

Among the generation that can barely remember the actual day of the attacks are future soldiers, politicians, journalists, activists and citizens that have the choice of continuing the way things are, or of choosing to realize the impact of the terrorist attacks and reversing the effects. It will be up to us to combat prejudice, but at the same time, to protect the men and women of this country.

Our generation should reflect on what has happened since September 11^th, and to realize the effects of the choices our country has made, both positive and negative. But I think what is more important is to focus on what we can do to change things.

The editor of La Mesa Patch asked readers if September 11^th changed their lives, if they were inspired to do something in the wake of the attacks, and if September 11^th, 2001, will become a pivotal date in our lives.

Yes, our lives have changed and September 11^th will always be a pivotal date. But now is the time when our generation can finally take our inspiration to do something for our country, and turn it into action. And that, I think, is the biggest effect that September 11^th will have on us.