On 9-11-01

Posted by Jesús on Thursday, September 15, 2011 · Leave a Comment

While surfing through the internet today, I came across a very intriguing piece/video from Touré on MSNBC (“Touré Calls Our Media 9/11 Nostalgia, Leaves Dylan Ratigan Speechless”), in which he confronts the mainstream media for commercializing the 9-11 tragedy. Were all those newspaper articles, photographs, and television coverage on the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil something that the public wanted and needed, or was it all for the purpose of boosting network ratings?

Touré struck several nerves, leaving the host at loss for words for a few seconds, and the segment ended in a definite awkward note. He had managed to critique every large media giant, from entire television networks, to respected and established newspapers, all in a blunt and thoughtful 2 minute soliloquy. Also, he briefly touched on the traumatized psyche of current American thought, and pointed at a couple scenarios that perfectly exemplify the significant changes that have occurred in our collective consciousness and in our concept of freedom.

I couldn’t help but agree with the guy. Honestly, I purposely avoided television all of last week so as to not be bombarded with the influx of 9-11 remembrance propaganda. And it’s not because I didn’t want to remember. Like many other Americans, I remember the exact place where I was standing when it was happening. Like millions of other people around the world, I saw the second jet crash into the South Tower live on television. My life changed in that instant. I was no longer naive to the problems of the world.

At the time, I lived a few miles from LAX, and I had grown accustomed to jet planes flying overhead. The few days that followed the day of the attack, the skies were eerily silent, which greatly contrasted what I had been seeing on television. Like many others, I felt shocked and stunned, and I grieved the America that used to be before the attacks. I wanted to contribute in some way, but I didn’t know what I could have done to help except donate blood. I did so, hoping that it’d help somebody.

Though the images of the planes crashing, people jumping from the burning buildings, and the collapsing towers will forever be etched on my mind, it’s what came afterwards that I feel was most detrimental to our health as a nation. The borders of the United States subsequently shut down, and a witch hunt began. Everybody with a turban became a suspect. Fear became widespread, everybody’s patriotism came under fire, and the freedoms that Americans enjoyed began to unravel along with our collective nervous system. The United States plunged into a downward spiral of vengeance, eventually starting war on two fronts in order to confront and bring to justice those who attacked us, while also waging war on its own citizens through the passing of The Patriot Act and other invasive and restrictive pieces of legislation that trump on personal freedoms.

Here at home, immigrants from all backgrounds found themselves attacked and ostracized. In a way, we were all looked upon as terrorists. And as Americans began to let their freedoms slip away, all in the name of national security, I saw my opportunity to become an American pushed to the back of the queue of national priorities indefinitely. In August of 2001, the Federal DREAM Act was introduced to the 107th Congress, and I remember that it had enough momentum and support to pass pre-9/11. After the attacks, the bill was quickly shot down, and my time in political limbo began.

Since then, immigration policy has slowly devolved into one of those one-step-forward-two-steps-back situations. Federal money and resources started pouring into the U.S./Mexico border. ICE began setting up checkpoints (mainly in predominantly-Latino neighborhoods) and began conducting mass raids. Deportations spiked. Hate crimes against Middle Easterners and Latinos rose at an alarming rate as anti-immigrant bills began to sweep and pass through several states. Racial profiling became legally permissible. Fear became mainstream. Immigration reform, though pressing and long overdue, became too complicated of an issue in our post 9/11 world. America does not want to take the chance of naturalizing a potential terrorist.

This is the world that we’ve been living in for the past 10 years. Xenophobic and fearful, angry and willfully ignorant, and even after hundreds of television specials remembering and commemorating the attacks, still obliviously unaware of the factors that led to such an atrocity as 9/11.

The undocumented DREAMer experience post 9/11 has been one of hardship, testing our allegiances and loyalty to this nation. Looking at our communities, we’ve seen many join the military only to be shipped off abroad to “fight for our freedoms,” and many never return; those who do manage to make it home don’t fully ever come back. We’ve seen education take a back seat as fees and tuition increase in universities, teachers are laid off, and resources and programs cut for our young people, making incredibly difficult for students in our situation to accomplish their academic dreams.We’ve had our families torn apart, and our communities living under the constant threat of ICE raids. We live traumatized and paralyzed by fear- not of terrorists, but of badges coming in and taking more of our community members away.

Personally, I appreciate all freedoms that I’m able to enjoy living in this country. It’s what makes this nation one of the best in the world. But it seems that many Americans take these freedoms for granted -so much so that they’re willing let themselves be stripped of them methodically by institutions who are promising to protect us from evil, even though these same entities couldn’t and didn’t protect us from these attacks before 9/11. All for a sense of feeling like we’re taking charge and control of our fears.

9/11 is a day that changed everything. And I don’t need a television special to remind me of all that. I see and experience those changes and consequences on a daily basis.

Being “undocumented and unafraid” encapsulates much more than just being unafraid of ICE and police. It resembles my refusal to live in a society where legislative decisions are manipulated by visions of planes crashing into buildings and security alerts rising and falling on a weekly basis. It’s exhausting being afraid all the time. It clouds the mind, it angers the heart, it distracts us from what’s most important: each other.

My only hope is that American society can remember its founding ideology, and that healing and reflection can finally take the place of fearful preemptive attacks on an enemy with no face. Because if we continue to live under these deplorable conditions, I’d have to sadly admit that the terrorists have won.

In solidarity,

Jesús