RAFAEL ACEVEDO CRUZ, UPR Departamento de Historia
AUTHOR BIO
Rafael Acevedo-Cruz was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico and has lived in the tri-state area, Latin America and Puerto Rico. He has a B.A. in history from the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras where in 2013 began his graduate studies in history. His academic interests revolve around the cultural study of popular music and his work converses with the fields of recent history and memory studies. You can follow him on Twitter @racevedocruz.
PAPER ABSTRACT
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in NYC, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. This event is often referred to as 9/11. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. I experienced the event, particularly the attack on the Twin Towers, from pretty close. I wasn’t even in college back then, however from the very beginning I thought the US was going to use it as a contemporary memory in American history. Since then I began my own reflections about the issue which have gone through various stages that have lead to this last article published in Latino Rebels. Briefly, my train of thought have been determined mostly by the social spaces I’ve been living in and by the different people with whom I’ve talked about it. However, it is important to point out that my words are a representation of my own decision making on how I’ve been deciding to remember this violent event throughout the years. So this presentation it is the history or what I call the behind the scene story of this paper.
RESOURCE FOR EDUCATORS
Related article: Acevedo-Cruz, 2015
Powerpoint: Acevedo-Cruz