Born at the dawn of the 21st century, our contributors landed in a world where the 9/11 attacks initially drew the nation together. However, the war on terror, at home and abroad, brought out an aggressive patriotism that morphed into suspicion and Islamophobia. They were still too young to really understand their own loss, but the mood it created dominated their early childhoods – a premature loss of innocence and a grasping for understanding of something too big for a young mind to fathom.

By the time they were entering second grade, the national pendulum had swung: Obama sailed to victory in 2008. For the next eight years, these kids were used to seeing an African American family living in the White House - unaware of how extraordinary this seemed to their elders. This generation spent their middle school years learning how to hide from the school shooters who displaced terrorists in the hierarchy of childhood nightmares.

As teenagers, "Generation 9/11" lived more and more of their lives in the deceptive safety of the internet – free from physical danger, but subject to potentially endless social and psychological assaults. For African Americans, there was also public acknowledgement of police violence. By the time they entered high school, America was more divided than ever – as the 2016 campaign and events in its wake made abundantly clear.

Now that they are leaving childhood behind, our contributors have a sense of responsibility that stems from their own tragedy. Their generation faces global enemies of climate change, pandemics, institutional racism, the grasping tentacles of social media and the internet. Experiencing the world through their eyes we get a visceral sense of how "Generation 9/11" is making the move into adulthood, firm in their belief that things can be changed for the better, and that it is their duty to do so.