The twin towers of the World Trade Center still stand tall for the seventh and eighth grade bilingual students at Robert Waters School on Summit Avenue in Union City.
These towers, standing about six feet tall, were made of cardboard boxes, aluminum cans and about 10,000 pennies.
“[This memorial] was built to show students appreciation and support to the families,” said Principal Jose Falto. The students built the towers as a memorial to be presented at the Memorial Day Ceremony held this past Thursday at Roosevelt Stadium, located at 26th Street and Kerrigan Avenue.
The ceremony was to be held in place of the traditional Memorial Day Parade and was slated to combine the traditional Memorial Day remembrance with a special memorial to the Union City residents who lost their lives on Sept. 11.
“This monument was built in remembrance of those that died on Sept. 11,” said Nahir Lagos, one of the students who worked on the monument.
According to Falto, each school was asked to participate in the ceremony. Besides the memorial built by teacher Anna Yglesias’ bilingual class, posters and other memorials were expected to be shown from other schools.
Understanding the tragedy
Although the students in Yglesias’ bilingual class are still more comfortable speaking in their native languages and all have recently come to the United States from another country, they all worked together to create the memorial to the Twin Towers.
“We all worked together on this project,” said Jonathan Gonzabay, another one of the students who worked on the memorial.
Yglesias said that the students spend time on Tuesdays and Thursdays discussing current events and reading clippings from the newspaper.
“It is amazing to see the response that these children have,” said Yglesias, adding that these children understand how the events of Sept. 11 effected the country.
In a short explanation that the students wrote about the memorial, they explain that, even though they are young, they do understand the enormity of what has happened.
“This memorial was created to express our deepest sympathy and to remind our community that even though we are children, we are clearly aware of the extent of this disaster,” read the short explanation that the students wrote about the memorial.
“We think that America is beautiful,” said Lagos. “We are the future, so we have to do something to help.”
“We understand what happened and this is our way to express our feelings,” added Estefany Gallardo, another student in Yglesias’ class.
Yglesias admits that the thought of building the Twin Towers was a little scary at first, but said that building the memorial helped her and her students to realize some of their feelings.
“Nobody wants to build the Twin Towers,” said Yglesias, adding that after talking to the class, they decided that this was the best way to memorialize the event. “After building this monument, it was different. It wasn’t as creepy anymore. Sept. 11 is a very scary thing.”
Rebuilding the economy
Each of the towers constructed by the students included about 5,000 pennies.
According to the brief explanation, the students used the pennies to symbolize the effect that the tragedy had on the country’s economy.
“They know how the tragedy affected our economy,” said Yglesias. “As children, in the future, they plan to rebuild and restructure America.”
The students agreed that the pennies also symbolized their role in rebuilding the economy.
“As children we are developers of our future,” read a biography. “We are destined to make a better, stronger and more fortified economy.”
All of the pennies used on the monument were donated by the students.
“The students would just bring in satchels of pennies each day,” said Yglesias.