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Tragic Losses Leave Distant Scars

Around the World, Families Encounter Struggles in Mourning the Roughly 250 Foreigners Who Died in the Sept. 11 Attacks

Antonio Javier was a 22-year-old waiter from Mexico at the Windows on the World restaurant, perched on the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center's North tower, when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred.

Like many of his co-workers, Antonio was in the U.S. illegally, part of the hidden army of migrant workers who do everything from picking strawberries to pruning trees in the U.S. economy. Of the 73 workers at Windows on the World who died that day, 34 were Hispanic.

Armando Javier's 22-year-old son left Mexico to be a waiter atop the World Trade Center. He died in the Sept. 11 attacks. On the 10th anniversary, Mr. Javier's wife will light a candle; he'll do nothing. 'Why? It won't bring him back.' ENLARGE

Antonio was also part of another group: the roughly 250 foreigners who died along with more than 2,500 Americans that day. They included a young Malaysian risk consultant who told his parents when he was 15 years old that he wanted to work in the World Trade Center someday; a Filipino woman who moved to the U.S. in search of the American dream and made enough money to send her relatives at home to school; and a 30-year-old Brazilian currency trader who gave his father, a São Paulo physician, a figurine of the twin towers and proudly told him, "This is where I'm going to work."

For their family members, the path to healing has been especially difficult.

Foreign nationals, including nearly a dozen undocumented aliens, did qualify for aid from the U.S. government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

Families Mourn

Luis Alfonso Chimbo, a 39-year-old waiter at Windows on the World, got up at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, to get to work early and help prepare for a banquet later that day.

Tom Clarke's sister Suria, who worked in the communications department of Cantor Fitzgerald, was at work by 8 a.m. on Sept. 11 in the World Trade Center's North Tower, sending emails. She was at her desk when the first plane struck.

Read more of their stories.

But many families don't speak English, making it hard for them to navigate the American legal system, visit the sites of the attacks, or even understand the country where their loved ones' lives ended in a tangle of melted steel and debris. Some have been unable to get visas to pay their respects in recent years or don't have enough money to travel easily.

Some also face troubles at home. Many live in countries where neighbors long ago grew indifferent to 9/11, or are openly hostile to the U.S. and the way it responded to the event. Others live in places, such as Indonesia or Japan, that have experienced devastating attacks or natural disasters in recent years that for many residents trumped America's nightmare—leaving families of 9/11 victims to commemorate their losses without the networks of support common in the U.S.

Haruhiro Shiratori, a restaurant owner in Japan whose only child, a 36-year-old son named Atsushi, died working for Cantor Fitzgerald, said he remembers being turned away at the entrance of Japan's foreign ministry when he went there seeking help soon after the attacks. He said it is still hard to elicit support: When a group of victims' family members began planning a trip to New York for the 10th anniversary, he said, Japanese airlines rebuffed his request for discounted fares or upgrades to business class, especially for the elderly travelers. One later agreed to look into it after he asked a friend who is a lawmaker to get involved.

At Grosvenor Square in London, a plaque bears names of U.K. citizens who died in the 9/11 attacks. Events at St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey will commemorate the tragedy. ENLARGE

Some countries will hold large-scale events to commemorate 9/11. In the U.K., with 67 citizens who died in the attacks, the memorials include an hourlong service at St. Paul's Cathedral that is expected to draw 2,000 attendees, and a public event known as "Awareness Sunday" at Westminster Abbey.

BGC Partners Inc., formerly part of Cantor Fitzgerald, is holding a "charity day" in London to remember the 658 employees of the investment bank who lost their lives. Dozens of celebrities, including actor Orlando Bloom and London Mayor Boris Johnson, are expected to attend.

But in many other places, the anniversary is passing with little or no fanfare.

Cookie Micaller, a Philippines journalist whose sister, Cynthia Wilson, worked as a receptionist for an office-services company in the World Trade Center, said she is just going to say a quiet prayer on Sunday.

Ms. Wilson went to the U.S. in 1986 with her husband and two children in search of opportunity. She later became a naturalized American and made enough money to help send her relatives—including Ms. Micaller—through school.

But Filipinos have other things to worry about, including widespread poverty and a violent insurgency in the south.

"There are no groups of 9/11 victims' families in the Philippines," Ms. Micaller said. "We mourned and suffered by ourselves."

In Malaysia, the parents of Vijayashankar Paramsothy, a consultant at Aon Risk Consultants who died in the World Trade Center at the age of 23, are divided over how to remember Sept. 11. Mrs. Paramsothy said her husband typically likes having people around, including some of his son's friends, but for her it is difficult. "I talk mechanically, smile, laugh and everything but deep down there is nothing," she said.

Mrs. Paramsothy said she always worried about New York, but gave in to the wishes of her son, who told his father when he was 15 his dream was to work in the World Trade Center.

Now, the couple's home in a Kuala Lumpur suburb is a memorial to their son. His photographs are displayed across the house, including atop a piano he used to play for his mother. There is a framed giant jigsaw puzzle he put together and a model ship he made.

His room remains the same as it was 10 years ago, except for mementos such as a giant American flag with the names of 9/11 victims and a metal plaque with melted steel taken from Ground Zero.

"I have kept his bedroom as it is, in case he walks in. I don't want him to think I had given up on him," said Mrs. Paramsothy.

A few years after the attacks, Mr. Shiratori, whose son Atsushi was working on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower, flew to Pakistan to hand-deliver a letter to Osama bin Laden, bringing three copies written in English, Japanese and Persian. He drove around the country's mountains for a week.

"Of course there was no way I was going to meet him—even the CIA didn't know where he was," he said. "I wanted to ask him directly why he did such a thing. That's why I went."

Haruhiro Shiratori in New York in 2006. ENLARGE
Haruhiro Shiratori in New York in 2006. Shiratori family

Although he didn't get his answers from bin Laden, he found a way to channel his frustrations. Using compensation from the victims' fund and Atsushi's other assets, Mr. Shiratori established a fund to help rebuild Afghanistan. He has visited as many as eight times since 2004. The fund has provided water purifiers, solar panels and supplies for a girls' school he helped build there. He now speaks Arabic better than English.

This year, Mr. Shiratori will be one of nearly 40 Japanese relatives of victims who will travel to New York for the anniversary of the attacks, which left 24 Japanese citizens dead. It will be the biggest group of Japanese relatives to go since many traveled together on the first flight to leave Japan for New York after the attacks to find their loved ones in the rubble.

In the corn and bean fields of Santa Inés Ahuatempan, Mexico, meanwhile, there is little to commemorate Mr. Javier, the Windows on the World waiter. His hometown, in the southern Mexican state of Puebla, is the kind of rural town all over Mexico with few opportunities for young men, many of whom flee at the first chance to try their luck in the U.S. as undocumented workers.

Antonio left when he finished high school at 17, joining his older brother Isidro in New York, who also worked at Windows on the World. Isidro was just outside the building when the first airplane hit and trapped his brother 107 stories above.

"I understand why my sons left. Look around: Life is hard here," said Armando Javier, a 62-year-old farmer with a cowboy hat, leathery face and rough hands, as he pointed toward a small patch of wispy corn stalks.

In the first two years after the attack, the U.S. government granted a visa to Antonio Javier's mother, Guadalupe. But the last two times she has tried to get a visa to visit the site where her son died, she has been turned down.

"I'm old now and I don't want to work up there," she said. "But still they won't let me go. So I remember him here on my own."

The family's financial hardship has increased in the past decade. Antonio used to send about $1,500 a month back to his parents, who used the money to build a small mom-and-pop shop in town. Antonio's death meant scaling back.

This year, Guadalupe says she will do what she has done every Sept. 11 over the past eight years: light a candle next to some ashes from the site and the American flag given to her by the U.S. government on the first anniversary.

Her husband has no plans to mark the occasion. "Why? It won't bring him back," he said, staring hard in the distance.

—Patrick Barta, Gautam Naik and Paulo Prada contributed to this article.

Write to David Luhnow at and Celine Fernandez at

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