Does culture influence on people’s memories about 9/11?

Does culture influence on people’s memories about 9/11?

Jonathan Champagne, Thomas Grousson

The recent opening of the Ground Zero museum forces people to remember 9/11 once again.

On May 15th 2014, the Ground Zero museum, which pays tribute to 9/11 victims, was formally opened.

Even if people need monuments to keep their memories alive, the entire world keeps slights of memories that surface easily. The entire world remembers where they were at the same moment, the entire world remembers what they were doing, the entire world keeps memories of that day. 9/11 impacted most of the people but each of us carries his own memory of that event.

One question that is to be asked is: do people’s origins influence the way they understand and remember 9/11?

Interviews with members of a culturally diverse Centrale Marseille population allowed us to ask them to describe their 9/11-day, what they think and feel about what happened at the moment and how they realized what had happened.  

It cannot be denied that everyone saw the same images and the same atrocity, but we can understand some differences. Take Kristen Hurst who is American, she told us that it was just a thing, that the USA had not faced anything like that before. She told us that it was almost insignificant when compared to the European history with extremely significant wars.

Perhaps some people didn’t completely understand the event because they were thousands of miles away but others deeply understand what happened when they, themselves, also faced a drama in their life for example Yue Xie.

It’s really hard to assimilate one memory to one origin because everyone is different, but what is sure is that people made their own and cultures don’t seem innocent to people’s carrying their memories.