Note from our Editor-in-Chief: Friday marks 25 years since the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001. This interview is part of Zeteo’s special week-long coverage of 9/11 and its aftermath in America, across the Middle East, and worldwide. - Mehdi
Twenty-five years after two commercial planes brought New York’s 110-story Twin Towers crashing down, two mothers who lost their adult children in the attack join Mehdi to reflect on their loss, their children’s legacies, and their fight against hate after the attack.
“I remember the 29-year-old woman who was going to change our lives,” says Donna Marsh O’Connor, who lost her pregnant daughter, Vanessa Lang Langer, who worked in the World Trade Center’s South Tower. “We still live in a culture that took my daughter, made a mess of the country she left behind, and every single day I want people to know that Vanessa would not recognize this country.”
As the dust settled on ground zero after the terrorist attack, grief turned to anger and distrust. For Talat Hamdani, mother of 23-year-old EMT and NYPD cadet Mohammad Salman Hamdani, that meant dealing with smears and suspicion against her son because of his Muslim faith.
“There was an article in the New York Post which said, with his picture, ‘missing or hiding’... trying to paint a picture of him being as a terrorist.” Hamdani tells Mehdi, “He went down there to help and made the ultimate sacrifice.”
Hamdani has fought to have her son recognized as a first responder at the 9/11 memorial in New York City, a request she says has been repeatedly denied, even by the current mayor. Zeteo reached out to the office of Zohran Mamdani on the matter, but has not heard back.
Watch the full interview above to hear how both mothers, who lived through every parent’s worst nightmare, turned from mourning to fighting and advocacy against hate, bigotry, and Islamophobia.
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Check out more of Zeteo’s 9/11 coverage:
