On Love, Loss, and Identity: My 9/11 Story
Reminiscing on my Aunt who died in the Towers, and the struggles of being brown in post-9/11 America
On September 11, 2001, my Aunt Deepa Pakkala left her home in New Jersey to go to work at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, and never came back. She was 31 years old and a consultant at Oracle on the North tower on the 89th floor. I was 6 years old.
Over the last 19 years, I have reckoned with what this loss means to me. Why is the grief I feel over 9/11 so much sharper than any loss I have experienced since? I was so young. Why does this singular event haunt me so much?
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, my family fell into a grief so deep I thought we’d never come out. My Uncle had a 7-month-old daughter to care for. My mother felt like she had lost a sister. My father, so enigmatic during times of sadness, seemed stoic.
I am Indian-American. I have brown eyes, black hair, and brown skin. I am a practicing Hindu, and my parents have an accent. When my Aunt died in the World Trade Center, these traits came to define my life in ways I never predicted.
After months, I returned to school. I lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, a rural rust belt town with very few South Asians. I was the only little girl with brown skin in my class. I had never thought about it until my classmates started to make comments. I had processed my grief through tears. My classmates processed their fears through cruelty towards me.
My peers couldn’t make sense of me. Here was the only little girl in town to have lost a loved one on 9/11, yet I resembled those they saw as responsible for this event. Not the victims they saw on television, the devastated families and first responders they saw on their screens. I didn’t “fit.” I couldn’t be both guilty of this crime and profoundly affected by it too. Instead of asking me which camp I belonged in, they decided for me.
“Terrorist”
“My mom said your people did this to us”
“You shouldn’t talk about 9/11”
“Don’t you ever feel guilty for what you did to us?”
My family walked the line between accused perpetrators and victims. We swallowed our tongues when we encountered bigotry, and went home to dwell on our loss. As I grew up, my appearance and my heritage felt like a burden. While more 9/11 anniversaries passed, I felt like I walked a tightrope. On one side there was anger at my peers that made me feel like I didn’t belong, and on the other was all the sadness I had experienced with my family in the months after the towers fell.
In high school, I attended the opening of the 9/11 memorial. I took pictures and I paid my respects surrounded by people that understood my family. The opening was only for families of victims, and in that group, I felt safe. When I returned to school, I gave an interview to my high school newspaper and the photos I had taken. I checked the article when it was published. While my photos had been used (and credited), they had only quoted a single line from me. The most innocuous one.
“Oh, right” I thought, “My story isn’t part of this tragedy.”
I’m 25 years old now, and I’ve had a lot more time to reckon with 9/11 and the racism I experienced afterwards. My skin color and heritage are no longer burdens, but markers of pride. My loss on that day is just that—mine. I am as much a part of that story as any other family that lost a loved one.
Yet in 19 years, I still struggle to find space to discuss the aftermath. How do I talk about the bigotry from my peers and how much that multiplied the sadness I endured? My grief from this tragedy is so sharp because in no other loss had I been blamed for it. When my grandfather died 3 years later in 2004, nobody looked me in the eye and insinuated I was responsible for his cancer. I found the space and love to process that trauma with dignity. After 9/11, I never got that chance.
To all the South Asians that have complicated feelings about 9/11, and in particular, my Muslim readers, I want you to know that I hear you. My Muslim friends have experienced far more hatred than I could fathom as a Hindu-American. You cannot tell a full history of 9/11 without including all the pain inflicted upon Muslim, Black, and brown communities afterwards, both domestically and overseas.
We are as much a part of this story as all the other victims that “fit.” Never question the validity of your feelings regarding this day. I know I don’t. Not anymore.
My second article regarding the South Asian slave trade will be out soon. Apologies for the delay. As always, if you have questions, feedback, or stories to share, please email me at nr.nyc.newsletter@gmail.com