Geographies of fear: Letter from America

Twenty years on, 9/11 continues to shape American spaces.

Earlier this summer, I arrived from Mexico to Newark Liberty airport for a brief stay in New York City. It was my first visit in years and a violation of my self-imposed travel ban to the United States, which despite being the country of my birth and upbringing I found to be a terribly disconcerting place and irreparably alienated from the human condition. I had left the US in 2003 following my graduation from university in New York, nearly two years after the September 11, 2001 attacks had occasioned the giddy launch of a “war on terror”. In keeping with the US predilection for shameless irony, this war had ultimately served to terrorise communities abroad and at home. Flying into Newark Liberty – renamed in honour of 9/11 – it was immediately clear that 9/11 was still going strong, 20 years after the fact.