What were your surroundings when you first heard about the destruction of the twin towers?

“So, I was at home and I had a three-year-old and a 15-month-old. So, I was at home with my kids watching cartoons when it erupted all over the TV The cartoons had shown us what had happened. I was kinda shocked. At first I thought someone had broken into the TV and was making it up. I didn’t think it was real until people started calling me and telling me it had actually happened.”

What was your reaction?

“I don’t think I reacted to it at first because I was really just in shock. I think as time went on and I started seeing all the things that were happening. I was really afraid because I had babies. I realized something really bad could happen in their lifetime. I don’t know if it really changed how I did things but I do think it made me more aware that something bad could actually happen. It’s just not something I could even fathom as a realistic thing.”

How did the nation react?

“I think it changed everything. I think it caused a lot of people to be afraid and react out of that fear. It caused a lot of race problems. [It also caused] a lot of my friends who were muslim to be treated very poorly. It was the first time in my life that I had seen people treated differently because of their skin color. I was fully aware of it because it was the first major incident that I remember in my lifetime. I noticed that security also kinda tightened up, especially in airports. A lot of people were just afraid of something that they didn’t understand. They assumed because one group claimed to be involved in that, that everybody associated with that group was going to hurt them. It made everyone very afraid.”