On September, 11, 2001 the world watched in horror as the Twin Towers collapsed.
The events of that historic day left the citizens of America shaken in fear of subsquent terrorist attacks, but it also unified the nation.
Red, white and blue flags were mounted everywhere in support of our injured nation, but over a decade later it seems that the tension, terror, and spirit may be fading away.
Never forget?
The Roundup surveyed students, faculty and staff on their thoughts, feelings, and memories from that day.
Aaron Chan , 37, senior secretary to Barbra Anderson, Dean of Academic Affairs, was on his way to work when he heard about the attacks.
“The reporter [was] on the radio, saying ‘this looks like a movie,’ and he started shouting ‘another plane is going through the building,” Chan said.
Chan believes that cultural ignorance is a contributor to the separation.
“We don’t know what other countries do, we don’t know what other countries think, we don’t know their culture, we only know ours, and some cultures are taught to hate America,” Chan said.
For some, though, the differences are too much
Bette Lou Rohm, a 57-year-old Encore program student, had forgotten that today is September 11.
“I remembered last night, and then I forgot this morning,” Rohm said. “And then someone reminded me, and I had forgotten now until you just said it.”
Looking back on the day, it seemed unbelievable and numbing, according to Rohm.
“Maybe because we see so many horrible things on TV, plus the fiction things we see about disasters so even thought it was in our country, it was in New York, for some reason I sort of felt a little isolated from the event,” Rohm said. “And I felt bad, I felt guilty that I felt isolated from it.”
Rohm’s preexisting religious and geopolitical differences with Muslims as a whole were only fueled by the attacks.
” I became more prejudiced against Islam than I had been before,” Rohm said. But I am Jewish, so I’m very pro-Israel.”
Not all Pierce Students feel so strongly about 9/11.
19-year-old Jessica Ponce was in elementary school and her day continued just as it had the day before.
“I heard what happened,” Ponce said.” But since I was a child, I didn’t really know exactly what it meant.”
Richard McMillian, 59, was also at school.
As a full time history professor, he arrived at Pierce College to teach his 8 a.m. class and asked if the school was closed.
With no word from the district on the status of the school, McMillian proceeded to his classroom.
“I had a TV in there but I could only watch spanish language television,” McMillan said. “…I listen to an AM news station and so I sat there and students showed up and all we did was watch it over and over again.”
It was a few hours later when word came from the district and Pierce closed down, according to McMillian.
He arrived at home, where he and his wife relived the events by watching them on TV.
It was with his wife that McMillan came to a realization.
“Why are we watching this?” McMillan recalls asking his wife. “There is nothing we can do; there is nothing more they can tell us.”
He then suggested that they get away from it all and watch a movie, according to McMillan.
“Neither of us remember what [movie] we saw that day, but it was a comedy and we laughed because there was nothing else we could do,” McMillan said. “We were becoming numb by the whole experience.”
In the years since the day of the movie, McMillan sees some of the ways America has changed.
“Prior to that we [Americans] definitely were thinking we were trying to do something that was good,” McMillan said. “That was really quite a shock for us, the level of hatred towards the United States.”
Jeremiah Buenrostro, 25, had just started his senior year in high school, and was sitting in his health class.
“It was a horrific day, ” Buenrostro remembers.
“There are more stereotypes now a days,” Buenrostor said. “Maybe when people are at the airport, they see a certain ethnicity they’re going to think twice about any kind of terrorism.”
After eleven years, some remember little; some remember everything.
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