September 11 and Filipino Americans

This twenty-ninth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the effects of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Filipino American community.

In coordinated suicide attacks planned by Islamist fundamentalist group al-Qaeda, planes were hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center in New York, and into field in Pennsylvania. With almost 3,000 killed in the attacks, many Americans reacted with shock and distress; however, the attacks represented the first major terrorist attacks on American soil.

In reaction, President George Bush declared a "War on Terror." The xenophobic atmosphere post-9/11 fueled extreme racism, backlash, violence, and suspicion. In the weeks after the attacks, hundreds of Filipino airport workers, many of them permanent residents, were laid off when the newly formed Transportation Security Administration overhauled airport security and replaced immigrant laborers with citizens.

Anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-South Asian sentiment and violence increased dramatically after the attacks. American witnessed an erosion of civil liberties (The Patriot Act). The Immigration and Naturalization Service, now housed in the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, increases deportations and harassment of political dissidents and radicals, Arab Americans, Muslims, South Asians, and Filipino Americans.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her administration became staunch allies of the Bush Administration's War on Terror, and American troops were sent to the Southern Philippines, ostensibly for the purpose of "training" Philippine troops.

Today, these events continue to both positively and negatively affect Filipino Americans.