9/11

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I may be in Mexico but the news can’t stop announcing what a terrible day it is.  I remember where I was that September 11 when the twin towers came down.  I was in the U.S. for one, the place I called home then and it was early in the morning, I was about to get up and get ready for school.  It was my first year at a new University and I was excited to be there and often arrived on campus earlier than expected just so I could take in the college environment and to sit and appreciate how lucky I was to be able to go to college. That same year the California legislature had passed a law (the California DREAM Act) that allowed undocumented students like myself to attend public California colleges at an instate price.  Proving that a student had graduated from a California high school, had been in the U.S. for at least three years and had the grades to be accepted into the college allowed the students to attend at the same price as other California student residents.  This meant that for the first time with my baby sitting and tutoring money I could afford to pay for some classes at the local California State University.  I had once dreamed of attending Cal Berkley and my grades were good enough right out high school but being undocumented made that dream just that.  Now I was grateful to be in college and I wouldn’t waste any time getting the education I so desperately wanted.  I woke up early every morning and listened to music while I got ready.  This particular morning my alarm had not been set properly and I had over slept.  I remember my father coming into my room and shaking me from my sleep.  “Wake up Fatima, hurry, you have to come see this” he spoke to me in Spanish and I could hear the angst in his voice.  I was sure my over sleeping was nothing to be worried about but what was it that I had to see.  I slowly rose and took my time getting to the living room when I heard him shout again “hurry, hurry”.  In front of the television where some of the worst images I can remember seeing, my skin had goose bumps and I could quickly fill my blood rushing to leave my body.  I had just declared my major a few months earlier and Political Science and the mechanisms that moved entire countries was what fascinated me.  Watching the news replay the first airplane crash into the first tower was shocking but as the second plane hit the second tower I knew what that mean, we were under attack and I knew the political implications that had.  We would soon be a country at war. 

I remember going to school and wondering if I should.  The news said everyone was on high alert for possible threats to other U.S. cities.  It was all everyone could talk about at school and everyone wanted to be watching the news rather than be working or studying.  Before much longer the University President announced that the school would be closing early for the day and classes were cancelled.  We all went home that day with fear in our minds.  I arrived home to watch everything that I had missed and to cry at the horror unfolding before all of us.  How could so many people be hurt, who did it and when would we return the favor?  I was American that day and every day after.  Now watching the recap from ten years ago on television in Mexico makes me feel exactly like I did that day and even though I am not allowed back in the U.S. I am still American, because being who you are isn’t a matter of locality it is a state of mind that follows you no matter where you are in the world.  Although I was born in Mexico to Mexican parents and have a firm understanding and respect for what it means to be of Mexican heritage I was raised in the U.S. and consider it my home.  Not only is my family there but I have started a family of my own there and even if I am never allowed to return to the place I call home it will take another 23 years to pass before I can call any other place home.  I was American on 9/11 and I am American now, maybe not in the wrapper some people want me to be but my love for my community and everything I have done there is proof enough that I belong there.  Today and every day I remember 9/11.