My name is Maihan Far Alam, I am an Afghan American and I graduated from the University of Virginia in 2019. I received my bachelor's degree in foreign affairs with a minor in Middle Eastern studies. 

I am originally from Khasni, Afghanistan but I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. On September 11, I was only five
years old. 

I was in kindergarten at the time so my initial reaction I don't quite remember and I do remember watching the television with my family around me just watching images of Twin Towers falling over and over on the news and my mother was crying that day but
I couldn't quite understand why and it wasn't until years later that I would understand the impact of that day. 

Prior to the events of September 11, I hadn't quite placed much thought into the fact that I am an immigrant. 

It wasn't until after the events of 9/11 that I became acutely aware of my cultural and religious background. 

My brother and I would get called terrorists or people would often refer to Osama Bin Laden as my uncle and my mom would always warn us about telling people where we were from or our family background. 

When the United States invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban regime "fell" and I put that in quotes because the Taliban still continues to maintain control of large parts of the country, but in major cities in Afghanistan like Kabul, women were now able to go to school, they were able to work outside the home, but that freedom that they were given that they didn't have before came at a cost. 

The War on Terror led to mass displacement, it led to the destructions of homes, hospitals, schools, entire neighborhoods, and the mass murder of thousands, hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians. 

It kind of leads to the question what kind of freedom is that if you leave for work in the morning to go to work or school you wonder if you're going to return home because you don't know if you're going to be killed that day. 

You're left wondering when you go to bed at night if your house is going to be the next target of a rocket attack and that's something my family has experienced we lost some of my cousins last year in a rocket attack when rockets hit their home in Kabul. 

And this past year alone another one of my cousins was shot by a Taliban member and he continues to remain in critical condition because he is not able to obtain the health care that he needs due to the lack of infrastructure in the country as a result of the war. 

For Americans September 11th is a day of mourning, it's a day of reflection it's a day of grieving and commemorating the innocent American lives that were lost, but for Afghans especially for lack of a better word they don't have that luxury to grieve, they don't have that luxury to mourn, war is their everyday reality it's something that they have learned to live with and cope with and the impact that September 11th has had on people in Afghanistan and and many other countries in the Middle East is profound and that's something that a lot of Americans either fail to realize or completely ignore.