On 9/11 they were recent immigrants. It was a day that would shape life in their new home

On September 11th, Benjamin Salazar, the son of Mexican parents, had just moved to New Jersey with his wife and two children. In June 2001 he got a job as a manager at American Express. His office was on the 41st floor of the American Express Tower, directly across from the World Trade Center.

Julieta Montemayor had come to Dallas with her husband from Coahuila, Mexico only a few months ago to work, save money and live in a peaceful place. The Montemayors were working for a construction company in Dallas that day renovating a hotel near the Pentagon.

For these two immigrants, September 11th was a day they would never forget. Like many first or second generation immigrants, it was a day that brought them closer to their new home – they shared the fear, pain, and fear of millions of Americans – but it also made them feel like outsiders.

It has been 20 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when more than 3,000 people lost their lives after four planes were hijacked by terrorists.

Two of them crashed into each of the twin towers, one into the Pentagon and the other crashed in a rural field in Pennsylvania after passengers battled the kidnappers.

The memories of this tragedy remain to this day, especially for those who have just arrived in the country and witnessed the events first hand.

Benjamin Salazar searches old pictures from his family’s days in New York, at his home in Dallas. Benjamin used to work for American Express at the World Trade Center Plaza in New York City. (Ben Torres / special article)

Salazar’s story

As Salazar was driving from Newark to his job in Manhattan that day, he saw smoke rising from one of the towers of the World Trade Center from a train window. He couldn’t understand what was going on and thought it was a very big fire.

Then the train stopped between two stations before reaching its transfer point. It stood there for a long time. He didn’t know the reason. To get to his office, he got off at the train station just below the Twin Towers and walked down West Street through a glass skyway.

On a typical day, he arrived a few minutes before 9 a.m.

But the night before he had had a headache and a fever and had left an hour late.

“Yes, I thank fate, I thank God,” said Salazar. “At the same time, I feel guilty because I wasn’t there to help.”

The skyway, the garden and the first six floors of the American Express Tower were destroyed in the attacks.

Benjamin’s wife Martha was rocking her six-month-old baby to sleep in her house when the phone rang.

She had just come back from leaving her daughter in kindergarten and her husband at the train station when she received the shocking news: New York was under attack.

“It was my family from Veracruz who called to see if we were okay. I didn’t know anything about Benjamin, but I suspected that he still wasn’t there because I had just dropped him off at the train station, ”said Martha.

“I also got a call from my mother-in-law who lived in New York. It was terrible torment for me that day. “

Today the Salazars live in Dallas. Benjamín Salazar, 61, is Vice President of Technology and Life Sciences at Comerica Bank. Martha Salazar, 55, is a Spanish teacher.

Julieta Montemayor poses at her home on the Farmers Branch on Tuesday, September 7th, 2021. Montemayor and her husband were working next to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 when an American Airlines flight crashed into the building.(Lola Gomez / photographer)

Montemayor’s story

Montemayor’s company worked on projects across the country. That day, she and her husband, along with six other employees, were in Washington, DC painting some hotel rooms when the planes hit. They went to the top floor of the hotel and saw the smoke and the torches.

Then the group leader’s radio hummed. It was their boss who told them to stop working as soon as possible without saying why.

“We didn’t quite understand each other because we didn’t speak English well. We went down quickly, packed up our supplies and then our boss came and told us what had happened, ”said Montemayor.

“He looked like he had just seen a ghost. He said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We’re going to Texas as soon as possible. But it took us almost three days to get to Dallas. “

“We turned on the van radio when we were trying to take a road into Dallas. But people were out on the streets, yelling, running and begging for help, ”said Montemayor.

On the way to Dallas, they were afraid to get out at restaurants or gas stations because they were verbally assaulted every time.

“’Get out of our country! What are you doing here? They only came to steal and hurt us. You’re just like the terrorists, the whites told us. We were scared because everyone was panicking and as foreigners we were seen as a threat, ”said Montemayor.

Montemayor remembers her boss getting out at gas stations on the roadside, quickly buying snacks for everyone, and driving on.

Today Montemayor, 44, works part-time cleaning offices. She is the mother of two and offers free swimming lessons for children in Dallas.

Twenty years after 9/11 and with the US troops withdrawing from Afghanistan, she said she thinks most about how political violence hurts people around the world.

“At the end of the day, it’s the people who face the consequences,” she said.

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