Chapter 3: American Pie
It’s around 5 or so in the afternoon and the sky is a shade of grey that I’ve never seen before. I was only 15 at the time, but my parents trusted me enough to drive from our house in Relampago to the karate studio in Weslaco. We didn’t call it a dojo, that just didn’t quite feel right in a location we shared with a gymnastics space in what was once an early 1900s ice warehouse. It also wasn’t quite karate, as our curriculum was almost entirely composed of Tae Kwon Do following the ITF standard. Nonetheless, it was my life outside of school and kept me active at a time when I could’ve easily regressed into playing video games all afternoon into night. I parked, took a breath, got out of my mom’s Expedition and proceeded up the stairs. I knew I would carry the weight of the day heaviest then, but I hoped that throwing a few kicks and practicing my forms would hopefully lighten the overwhelming sense of dread that had only grown throughout the day.
It’s sometime after the first tower was struck that our history teacher, Mr. Martinez, rolled in the television and told us to watch intently. His tone was somber, and there was a sense that he was asking us to view the live news feed for our own historical recollection. We watched in shock when the second tower was hit, and I can’t remember if we saw the first tower collapse before we went to our next class. It’s been 25 years since that awful day, and with each year that passes the minutia of events gets fragmented and marked for deletion. As our normal school day proceeds, teachers don’t really teach, and students are ambivalent on whether to take advantage of this time to socialize or solemnly reflect on the horror we’ve just witnessed. We’re not children anymore, we know exactly what just happened, and we know exactly what is about to happen. Of course we couldn’t predict all of the other changes to our society that would occur. Our innocence was lost, we were angry, and retribution would be brutal.
That night, after getting back from karate, President Bush addressed the nation. His speech was a difficult one to deliver I’m sure, but the retaliatory tone he evoked towards the end was a powerfully uniting force. We were angry, I was angry, and for the past few years I’ve been practicing martial arts but from a pacifist’s perspective. We learned to defend others first and ourselves second. But this was different. The brutality was at a scale that most of us could only conceptualize from our history studies, but couldn’t quite comprehend was our reality. It’s been a quarter century, but watching footage from that day still gets me choked up. The images, the video, the testimonials, it’s all heartbreaking and the only recourse we can extract from it is the resilience we showed in rebuilding what was lost.
I’ve been to Manhattan a few times now as an adult. Life as a denizen of Gotham will always be foreign to me. There aren’t massive fields of sugar cane lining the streets. There aren’t any HEBs, or Whataburgers, or any of the other familiarities we Texans are accustomed to. What there is, though, is people. Honest, hard working, every day people going about their days and doing their best to find happiness and belonging, just like we all do. They may not wear cowboy hats, but to be honest, hardly anyone does in Texas unless they’re donning them as casual formal wear or think riding a bull with a helmet is for sissies. Those of us that lived through those days are forever intrinsically bonded with those we share a common affiliation with, Americans. We needn’t associate ourselves with labels about heritage and nationalistic purity. We shouldn’t define ourselves by how intolerant we can be towards our fellow neighbors. Identity is formed by our surroundings and who we ultimately take our inspiration from. I am a Texan, like my family before me, but that day, we were all New Yorkers.