The emotional and physical aftermath of 9/11

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/911-latino-ground-zero-cleaners-struggle-with-health-issues_n_954074.html

"I feel like crying all the time," she said. "Every day I am more useless." -Padredin, 72.

The terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001 has left millions of cuts unhealed, either in a person's heart or soul. It is a day where everyone is affected in some way that America lost hope of remaining secured and reliable. Millions of citizen's lives are wrecked, left with tatics that will affect their lives as they try to move on. As we have uncovered the emotional grief and pain, we have ignored the physical damages September 11th has left.

The Latino Voices of The Huffington Post focused of the aftermath it left on workers that were nearby the Trade Center, or worked days afterwards. Padredin, a cleaning lady who worked nearby the Trade Center, started to show asthma-like symptons within days. The writer focuces more onto the fact these workers are still getting more ill--after a decade passed by. "Ten years after the attacks, their symptoms are the same as those reported by many others exposed to the dust, primarily respiratory and digestive illnesses like asthma and acid reflux. Programs offer medical assistance to anyone who spent time at the site after the attacks and is diagnosed with those conditions..." A huge contribution towards getting easily sick was the inadiquate amount of protecting cleaning gear. Although, they continued to work just as fire fighters were clearing up the Trade Center.

Tracing back to my recent statement; another observation I made about this article was that the writer made it seemed as these cleaners were more than just cleaners--but heroes. The article included a Dominican adult who's effort on cleaning around the Trade Center was equivalent to a fire fighters. His ambition to make the state of New York cleaner and efficiant paid off with a great feeling--despite of his post-physical trauma.

My reason of chosing this article was not based on the fact that it emphisized hard-working Latinos who were afected by the aftermath of September 11th, but it embarked an unfortunate fact that was somewhat ignored by America. Yes, there were millions of lives emotioanlly traumatized, as I have mentioned. Yet, these cleaners were as affected and efficiant as those who were also around the Trade Center during the terrorist attacks.