Ng: Do you know the name of this Sept. 11 hero?

UC Berkeley in September is about those glorious second summer days when time stops, the sun pours and the last light burns. My class begins as the sun reaches its apex. Our classroom, a free-standing bungalow with a bomber jet name — B5 — has its own lawn in the Hearst Field Annex. We take class outside — our toes in the grass, hands shielding glare, a stickiness at our elbows and the occasional licking breeze. By late October, daylight savings will drop like a blind, and when class ends, the sky will be a singe-black.

Our course on Asian American Literature begins with everyone telling a story that only they can tell. I clarify that I’m not asking for secrets. A story is a fact. A secret is the manipulation of a story.

“I’ll go first,” I say. “Who knows the name Betty Ong?”

I did not expect many to answer. In a decade of teaching at UC Berkeley, only one student has known her name.

Betty Ong happened to work on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. Ong is an unsung national hero: She was the first person to alert American authorities that a terrorist attack was taking place. Her alert about the hijacking of Flight 11 led to the shutdown of our national airspace.

Each Sept. 11, my students listen to the recording of her last 23 minutes of life. Her voice becomes an echo tunnel inside their ears: Betty Ong is trapped, Betty Ong can’t escape, the terrorists have taken control. And when she stops speaking, we know the plane has hit the north tower.

One by one, my students walk back into B5. They’re stunned at how calmly Betty had recounted the hijacker’s actions, and how she repeatedly says her name and seat number — as if she’s being interrogated.

Their eyes train on me. I tell them that in the 1960s, Betty Ong and I were classmates while living in a San Francisco Chinatown that was a glitzed-up tourist attraction for outsiders and a replica of China that residents had left behind.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I had been a New Yorker for more than a decade. That morning, I’d taken the subway downtown and walked up onto Delancey Street to see the tail of a jet jammed into the north tower. I’d stood with homeless folks and stiff shirts alike, too shocked to be afraid.

I’d continued to my appointment that day because, as a firstborn, I’m trained to proceed with the plan. My accountant and I huddled around the radio which crackled with nothingness. Then I walked back on the eerily-empty Delancey and got back onto the subway to ride the last train uptown before the city locked down.

I let my students sit in their quiet.

Then I ask: “Would you call your boss or your mother?”

“Mother! Mother!” The chorus of voices is thunderous. I don’t need to remind them of this fact: Outside America, parents protect their children; in America, children must protect their parents. To save the country is to save the family.

Lavie, a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadet, recounts the ridiculously lavish 9/11 commemorations where she’d learned about the fallen firefighters, the men on Flight 93 and even the names of all the rescue dogs.

“But I never heard Betty Ong’s name,” she said.

Catherine, looking disturbed, puts her head down on her pack. Later that night, unable to sleep, she’ll email to tell me what she’s discovered: her grade school in Bakersfield petitioned to have the school’s name changed to honor the fallen hero.

The Campanile, UC Berkeley’s 307-foot tall bell tower, chimes as I’m giving the rest of the assignment. They know the story so they’ll share it: they’ll choose a friend and listen together. Then they’ll write about the personal and the partnered experience. This teaches more than story, this magnifies experience and memory.

I tell them they’re breaking a secret: they’re writing the intimacy, which becomes their own Betty Ong story.

As my students gather their belongings, they lower their gaze to confer privacy in our close quarters, a talent from their ancestors. They stand and move into the amber light — their stillness and quietness, cousins of obedience and respect in the face of suffering.

Fae Myenne Ng teaches creative writing and literature at UC Berkeley. From the Sacramento Bee.

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