For These Local 20-Year-Olds, There Was Never A ‘Before 9/11’
Emily Childs, a Tufts University student from Somerville who was born on Sept. 11, 2001. (Courtesy Emily Childs)
The young adults born in 2001 are too young to remember the 9/11 attacks or their immediate aftermath first hand. But it’s still an event that has shaped nearly every aspect of their lives.
“I’ve never known a world without terrorism or a war on terror,” said Emily Childs, a Tufts University student from Somerville who was born on Sept. 11, 2001. “I have nothing else to reference except for this post-9/11 America.”
“It’s kind of felt to me like the backdrop of the America that I know,” said Eric Zhao, a Tufts University student from Lexington, who was born in 2001. “Kind of like how perhaps the Cold War or Vietnam felt to people older than me.”