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Whether it was with corridos, or poems, or for some families' tears and tristeza, and for others a distant pain that won't go away, 9-11 and its aftermath live on. I'm Maria Hinojosa reporting from New York on this special edition of our program. We look back at the year that's past, and at the people whose lives will never be the same. And later on this program living and working near ground zero. What if your job is to clean up the dust at ground zero but you don't have protection or citizenship.

Latino USA's Mandalit del Barco profiles several Latino New Yorkers who survived the World Trade Center attack. Over the past year they have been struggling to recover and they've been helping other Latino families as well.

[Commentary on Patriotism and asking questions]

It took days, weeks, and months for the dirt, dust, fires, and smoke to clear from Ground Zero. But people had to get back to work; they had to get back home. Everyone was telling us to get back to normal and quickly. In the days following the attacks hundreds of immigrant day laborers, the majority Latino, were hired to clean apartment buildings and offices surrounding the site. Almost immediately many of these workers began to fall ill. Eight months after September 11, in May of 2002 the Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement supporting what a many New York's environmental and public health organizations already knew, that the air inhaled by workers during the clean up efforts was indeed toxic. Joining me in the studio is Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News. He's author of 'Fallout' a book about the environmental and public health impact of World Trade Center attacks.

Sometimes it's hard to remember what our lives were like before September 11, but if you remember back to days just before the terrorist attacks President Bush had said he would focus unprecedented attention on Latin America, particularly Mexico. But when the twin towers fell on September 11 the Bush administration began focusing its attention and resources on eradicating the terrorist threat. No one argued with that decision, but as our nations political priorities have shifted so has Latin America's role vis-a-vis the United States. From Mexico City, Latino USA's Franc Contreras has more.