All at once, everything changed.
 | By Arsh Raziuddin Art Director, Opinion |
I didn't realize I was brown until Sept. 11, 2001. No longer was I simply a 10-year-old girl; I was a 10-year-old girl who was Muslim and brown. |
The anxiety that began on that day hasn't stopped for 20 years. At this point, I've been called a "terrorist," a "sand monkey," and someone once said to me that Osama bin Laden was my uncle. I've overheard friends' parents say that my family needs to be reminded "that they live in America now." |
Members of my Muslim community stuck giant stars and stripes in their front yards, feverishly celebrated the Fourth of July, and made sure to thank our military. We had to work hard to prove that we were something we'd assumed never required proof in the first place: that we were Americans. |
I'm still apprehensive about my mom's insistence on wearing her traditional clothing. I often hesitate to say I'm Muslim, and I can't muster the courage to pray outdoors with friends. I look for escape routes when I visit the mosque for Eid, for fear of an attack on this place of worship. |
The spaces into which I used to walk as a young child, relatively carefree, are now the spaces in which I'm a symbol. I've been forced into a hyper-awareness of what I represent. Sept. 11 is a marker of mass tragedy and death, and it is also the day I lost my innocence. |
To mark the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, Times Opinion is publishing several pieces reflecting on the tragedy and its ramifications: globally, geopolitically, personally. |
What does patriotism mean for a young Marine determined to prove himself to his country? How are the markers of identity, like wearing a hijab, misunderstood amid paranoia? What does a former Muslim's life look like? The answers to these questions, among many others, illuminate the varied experiences of a generation who grew up in the long shadow of Sept. 11. |
In addition to Ahmad's piece, the author Laila Lalami writes elegantly on our collective national memory and what we've chosen to focus on and forget in the aftermath of 9/11. Serge Schmemann, who wrote the lead Times article on Sept. 11, looks back at the poems eighth- and ninth-grade students in Washington State wrote and sent to him after that article published 20 years ago. Spencer Ackerman draws a compelling link between the Jan. 6 riots and the Sept. 11 attacks. |
It isn't until we explore such reflections and parse individual experiences that we're able to understand the true depth of this global tragedy. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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