Twenty-five years later, the names still occupy the center of the commemoration.
Within that huge number there is one story that is usually less visible: that of the hundreds of Latinos who were in the Twin Towers, on planes, working in offices, restaurants and services, or who were part of the communities that were struck by the tragedy.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) together with the New York City Department of Health allows to approach a concrete figure: 258 of the victims registered at the World Trade Center were classified as Hispanic.
The CDC report, published in September 2002, examined 2,726 death certificates related to the World Trade Center attacks that had been submitted until August 16, that year. Of that total, 177 corresponded to Hispanic men and 81 to Hispanic women, for a total of 258 people.
The figure is significant because that study was limited to the victims linked to the New York attack and used the records available at the time. It does not, therefore, constitute a nationality list of all the Latin victims of the four planes and the three sites attacked.
It is also necessary to differentiate Spanish origin from nationality or place of birth. A victim could have been born in New York or New Jersey and be of Dominican, Puerto Rican, Mexican or other Latin American origin.
Therefore, nationality and ethnicity figures should not be summed up as if they were equivalent.
You can see: “As a nation, we will never be able to forget it,” says Los Angeles firefighter.
The CDC records also show the international diversity of the World Trade Center. Of the 2,726 victims studied, 568 were born outside the 50 U.S. states. Among the most frequent birthplaces were Puerto Rico, with 34 people, and Dominican Republic, with 26.
That doesn’t mean that only 34 Puerto Rican or 26 Dominican have died, as many members of both communities had been born in the United States.
The data shows to what extent the World Trade Center was a place deeply linked to New York’s diversity: its offices, restaurants and services gathered every morning workers of different origins and nationalities.
The Latin history of the 11-S cannot be reduced to a single profession or economic condition. Among the victims were employees of financial and corporate offices, restaurant workers, maintenance and service personnel, members of emergency bodies and people who were simply in the complex that morning.
The CDC data show that diversity also in the education of Hispanic victims: 103 had university or higher studies, 87 had completed secondary and 56 had completed part of university studies.
Behind each of those categories was a personal story that today is represented among the names inscribed around the pools of the 11-S Memorial.
The monument recalls the 2,977 victims of the 2001 attacks, while the names of those who died in those attacks and the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center attack surround the two pools built on the footprints of the ancient Twin Towers.
The Latin footprint of the 11-S did not end the day of the attacks either. Thousands of firefighters, police, construction and cleaning workers, volunteers and residents were exposed to dust and toxic substances released after the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Latinos also had a significant presence among these people. Studies of workers and volunteers who participated in subsequent tasks show a significant Hispanic representation among those who were exposed at Ground Zero.
The 9/11 ceremony gathered the relatives of the victims at the Memorial in New York. As happens every year, the names are read out loud in the place where the Twin Towers were. But the anniversary of 2026 has a special weight: a quarter of a century has passed since the attacks.
Among those stories are those of at least 258 Hispanic men and women documented among the victims of the World Trade Center.
But, 25 years later, the Manhattan memorial remembers something simpler: each number corresponds to a name and each name, to a life.
