Seattle area young people reflect on what it means to only know a post-9/11 world

By Daisy Zavala

(SEATTLE TIMES) Sept. 11, 2001, is a day etched into many people’s memories — they remember where they were, what they were doing and how they felt. But people born after 9/11 are navigating a different experience.

Mariam Badr, an 18-year-old student at the University of Washington, Bothell, said each anniversary brings a slew of hate for Muslims, especially for women like herself who wear hijabs and are easily identifiable as Muslim.

“Why does this event that I wasn’t even present for affect my life up till this day?” she said.

When Badr was 9 years old, she sat in her Issaquah classroom as she would any other day. But the lesson plan that day included conversations about Sept. 11.

Badr remembers everyone in her class looking at her, as if she had something to do with the attacks, though they took place before she was born.

“I was beyond confused,” she said. “It felt like people looked at me differently.”