1) Where was I when the 9/11 attacks happened?
I was at University of Hawaii that time, living at the dorms!
Because of the time difference between NY and Hawaii, I was asleep when the attacks happened!
I first found out about it when my mom called me at 5:45. She mentioned that the World Trade Center blew up. At the moment, I was thinking it would've been similar to the bombing that occurred in the World Trade Center in 1993.
Only when I listened to the radio (the TV in my dorm room was screwed up at the time), when I found out it was actually airplanes that hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Later that morning, I was in the cafeteria, when a student was concerned that a class I had with him was going to be cancelled. He also fear that Pearl Harbor might get hit again.
I had 2 classes that day. In the 1st class, the professor mentioned about the 9/11 attacks, then went on with the lesson of the day. I think it was the appropriate way to deal with it.
Acknowledge what happen, but don't let it stop everything.The 2nd class that day, the teacher just cut it short.
In that semester, I was working at the UH dorms, both the Lokelani and Lehua buildings. Coincidentally, 9/11/2001 was the 1st day I was working at the Lehua building. Hectic circumstances.
3 days after the 9/11 attacks, I was hanging out with a long-time friend. We were talking about the week's events, plus all the racist hate crimes committed against Arab Americans occurring in the mainland. Then the friend said that I better shave (at that point I didn't shave for a whole week) or someone might look at me the wrong way. (Though I am Latino, some have said I look like I'm from the Middle East, especially if I didn't shave) Needless to say, I shaved my face that night (though I kept my infamous mustache).
2) More on this "having a mosque near Ground Zero is an insult to the victims" bull nonsense!
There already was a mini-mosque INSIDE the World Trade Center!
Read that sentence again people!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/nyregion/11religion.html
In that article, a Muslim electrician named Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam mentioned about his experiences working in the World Trade Center!
Over the next few days, noticing some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.
He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.
On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.
(skipped paragraphs)
Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of the life of the World Trade Center.
Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition
My comments: Does any of this information surprise you? If you're over 18 years old and those italicized paragraphs surprise you, then you are an EXTREMELY ignorant person!
A mosque near Ground Zero is only an insult to extremely ignorant people who think in stereotypes!
It is NOT an insult to the victims! The people who were working and visiting the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 were of many faiths! There were Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and yes, Muslims!
If that shocks you, you are mega-ignorant! Are you really that lacking in brains that you didn't know there were employees within World Trade Center that are from Islamic cultures? Are you really that lacking in brains that you really thought only Christians, Jews and atheists were employed in the World Trade Center?
New York is an immigrant city, where people come from all over the world! Even Muslim countries! Get over it already!
