Toronto Star
· collected 2026-09-07 · by Deepti Hajela The Associated Press
Story summary
Twenty-five years have passed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which resulted in 2,977 people killed, including 79 workers and 91 guests at Windows on the World restaurant in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The attacks also caused widespread destruction and changed the world forever.
Many Americans are still affected by the trauma of that day, as seen in the lives of individuals like Colin McShane, who lost his father in the attacks when he was just 4½ years old. McShane's experience is not unique, as many others have been impacted by the loss of loved ones or personal experiences on 9/11.
In addition to the human toll, the attacks also had significant global implications, including a shift in international relations and a new era of terrorism. In response to the attacks, the United States launched the "war on terror," which has continued under various administrations.
However, the impact of 9/11 extends beyond geopolitics. The attacks also led to a surge in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in the US, with many Muslim Americans facing harassment, discrimination, and even violence. This phenomenon continues today, as seen in the treatment of Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate nominee who has been called a terrorist and a radical Islamist.
In the years following 9/11, many first responders have fallen ill or died from related health issues due to their work at ground zero. The World Trade Center Health Program was established to provide care for these individuals, but funding has not kept up with the number of people getting sick.
As the US approaches the 25th anniversary of 9/11, many Americans are reflecting on how the country has changed since that day. With a new generation growing up without memories of the pre-9/11 America, there is a growing concern about the need for continued remembrance and understanding of this pivotal moment in history.
Written for “Anniversary of September 11 Attacks” on 2026-09-08,
grounded in this article and the 37 other(s) covering the same event.
NEW YORK (AP) — When the planes crashed and the buildings fell on that sunny September morning 25 years ago, the shock waves of dismay and grief went far past downtown New York City, rural western Pennsylvania and just outside Washington, D.C.
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waves → crash → D.C.
They radiated through every part of the United States in communities large and small, tearing at Americans’ sense of safety and their place in the world.
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They → radiate → world
Hearts were broken across the nation, not just of those who lost their loved ones but among strangers who mourned for them, the Sept. 11 attacks leaving no one unaffected in an unwanted moment of horrifying togetherness.
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attacks → break → togetherness
A quarter of a century later, the effects linger.
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effects → linger → century
We all live in a post-9/11 world, with its security strictures and surveillance.
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We → live → strictures
But here’s the thing: Americans don’t all live in the SAME one.
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Americans → ’ → one
What the attacks and their aftermath have come to mean isn’t a single viewpoint shared by everyone, for reasons chronological, political and personal.
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come → come → reasons
It’s a tapestry of meaning and grief as varied as the nation in which 9/11 took place.
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9/11 → ’ → place
So many things affect our understanding
It’s somewhat inevitable.
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It → affect → understanding
After all, the mere passage of time means tens of millions of young Americans have been born since then.
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millions → mean → Americans
For them, 9/11 is something to learn about in history lessons.
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9/11 → learn → lessons
But people’s views of 9/11 and its aftermath have also been shaped by human factors like policies and actions taken by those in power.
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views → shape → power
And the America that was attacked was already a nation with its own history and tensions, with stress points of dispute and disagreement put under additional strain by the catastrophic event.
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points → attack → event
“The same event, whether it’s a disaster or a shock or even the recovery process is completely different depending on your network,” says Daniel Aldrich, a professor at Northeastern University who studies communities and resilience.
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who → ’ → communities
Those networks can exist in a range of ways and layers.
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networks → exist → ways
Among them: those who lost loved ones; those who spent months clearing the rubble and debris from ground zero; those who were motivated to join the military; those who lost jobs in hard-hit industries like tourism and air transportation; those who came from certain countries and communities viewed with heightened suspicion after the attacks.
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who → lose → attacks
Different networks overlap in Jenna McPartland’s family.
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networks → overlap → family
She was expecting her first child with her husband, Ariel Jacobs, who was killed at the World Trade Center.
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who → expect → Center
She gave birth days later to their son, Gabriel, whose life was irrevocably altered by an event he didn’t experience.
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he → give → event
In the years since, McPartland remarried twice, had two younger sons with no biological tie to their older brother’s dad and has been a stepmom to two teenagers for the last decade.
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McPartland → remarry → decade
Even as she added new chapters to her life, she made sure Gabi was connected to his father’s family, and that her younger sons also knew that Sept. 11 was part of their larger family story.
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Sept. → add → story
“My middle boy wrote his college entrance essay on being the child of a 9/11 family, but not being the 9/11 kid.
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boy → write → family
And how he wouldn’t exist had his brother’s dad not died,” says McPartland, 52, a chef and restaurant owner in Fairfield, Connecticut.
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McPartland → exist → Fairfield
“They all acknowledge it in different ways, they feel it in different ways, they sense it in their lives in different ways.”
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they → acknowledge → ways
Varied events play a role in the impact on people
Also playing a role in the impact, and even grief, caused by 9/11: choices that were made after the attacks by the U.S. government like the restructuring of government agencies and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, along with foreign policy decisions like the invasion of Afghanistan.
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that → play → Afghanistan
Immigration had already been a contentious issue before the attack: Who should be allowed to come? Who could stay? What did it mean to be American, and who could claim it?
uncertain
who → allow → it
After Sept. 11, it took on another dimension of added fear and suspicion.
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it → take → fear
And much of it fell on people of Muslim faith or coming from Muslim-majority parts of the world.
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much → fall → world
For example, in 2002, the federal government implemented the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which required non-U.S. citizen males over 16 from 25 countries, almost all of them Muslim-majority, to register at certain ports of entry or at immigration offices if they were already in the country.
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they → implement → country
Critics condemned it as racial and religious profiling, and it was dismantled in the following decade.
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it → condemn → decade
“The idea that there’s this outside threat in the form of people who look like this or from particular countries really fueled the reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security and has continued to fuel the ways in which we’ve funded and contributed to the securitization of our immigration system and society more broadly,” says Jayesh Rathod, a professor at Georgetown Law.
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Rathod → ’ → Law
That lingers in the existence of the Transportation Security Administration and the general hardening of security measures in society overall.
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That → linger → society
“The idea that we need to do everything possible to protect ourselves from whatever this threat is, amorphous threat, has become totally normalized,” Rathod says.
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Rathod → need → threat
The post-9/11 environment also saw the creation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is now part of the public’s awareness as the agency carrying out aggressive and highly controversial immigration crackdowns under the Trump administration.
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which → see → administration
And in a land where racism, xenophobia and stereotypes were part of the landscape, people in other communities felt it too, like Balbir Singh Sodhi, the Arizona gas station owner shot and killed four days after the 9/11 attacks.
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people → feel → attacks
His assailant killed Sodhi, a bearded and turbaned member of the Sikh faith, assuming he was Arab.
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he → kill → faith
The impact felt by Muslim Americans and others has been part of what Vida Lashgari has learned about the attacks that took place a few years before she was born.
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she → feel → place
Raised in California, her mom Mexican and her dad Persian, the 21-year-old says she “grew up learning about how 9/11 particularly impacted Middle Easterners, Sikhs, brown people as a whole and how that kind of changed their everyday life.”
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that → raise → life
Her father, she says, and “many Middle Easterners, became more hyper-aware of their appearance, their difference in the way they spoke and dressed in the U.S. after 9/11.
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they → say → 9/11
And that kind of fear, I think, has carried throughout the Middle Eastern community since then.
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I → think → community
…and 13 more, not listed.
