Afghan Americans

Afghan Americans (Dari: آمریکایی‌های افغان‌تبار Amrikāyi-hāye Afghān tabar, Pashto: د امريکا افغانان Da Amrīka Afghanan) are Americans with ancestry from Afghanistan. They form the largest Afghan community in North America with the second being Afghan Canadians. Afghan Americans may originate from any of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan.

For Pashtuns in the United States, see Pashtun Americans.

The Afghan community in the United States was minimal until large numbers were admitted as refugees following the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Others have arrived similarly during and after the latest war in Afghanistan.^[11]^[12] Afghan Americans reside and work all across the United States.^[6] The states of California, Virginia and New York historically had the largest number of Afghan Americans.^[2]^[3] Thousands may also be found in the states of Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Washington, Oklahoma, Nebraska,^[13] Idaho, Missouri, North Carolina, and Illinois.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[12]^[14]^[15] As of 2022, their total number is approximately 155,000.

Demographics[edit]

Immigration[edit]

According to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute website for 2017 - 2021, there were 118,500 Afghan immigrants in the USA.^[62] The counties or county-equivalents with the most Afghan immigrants were as follows:

– U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2007 to 2009

Zalmay Khalilzad

– 5th President of Afghanistan

Ashraf Ghani

– Distinguished Professor at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.; ex-Afghan diplomat

Ali Jalali

– Former President of San Jose State University and California State University, East Bay

Mohammad Qayoumi

– Member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives

Safiya Wazir

Aisha Wahab – Member of the ^[67]^[68]

California State Senate

– Politician in Afghanistan

Ajmal Ahmady

– Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States from 2003 to 2010

Said Tayeb Jawad

– Professor of anthropology at Indiana University

Nazif Shahrani

– Afghan Ambassador to the United States from 2002 to 2003

Ishaq Shahryar

– Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Stony Brook University

Wali Karzai

– Professor of economics at NYU^[69] and signatory at 2001 Afghanistan Bonn conference

M. Ishaq Nadiri

– Professor of economics at University of Southern California^[70]^[71]

Nake M. Kamrany

– Director of Muslim Public Affairs Council ( MPAC)^[72]

Haris Tarin

– Author of West of Kabul, East of New York, a book published in 2001, shortly after the "9-11" attacks.

Tamim Ansary

– Best-selling author whose work includes The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

– Author of Opium Nation and journalist

Fariba Nawa

– Author of A Fort of Nine Towers and co-author of Shakespeare in Kabul

Qais Akbar Omar

– Author and art historian

Hamid Naweed

– Writer and Artist

Leila Christine Nadir

– Former Mayor of Kandahar

Ghulam Haider Hamidi

(born Shibar), independent scholar and development consultant for Focus Humanitarian Assistance

Hafizullah Emadi

Safi Rauf at the Kabul International Airport with WFP after the fall of Kabul
Safi Rauf (born 1994) – 2021 Washingtonian of the Year, TED fellow, Tillman scholar, Georgetown graduate, Navy reservist, and the founder of Human First Coalition

- Served in the United States Marine Corps during Operation Enduring Freedom in the GWOT era as an intelligence chief and the owner of BlackRock Transportation, among others.

Nadia Abdul Geib

Afghan diaspora

Afghanistan–United States relations

Demographics of Afghanistan

Aslami, Wajma. "The Impact of 9/11 on Afghan-American Leaders." Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship 15.1 (2010): 124+.

Baden, John Kenneth. "Through Disconnection and Revival: Afghan American Relations with Afghanistan, 1890-2016." (PhD Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 2018).

Cvetkovich, Ann. “Can the Diaspora Speak? Afghan Americans and the 9/11 Oral History Archive.” Radical History Review (2011), no. 111 (2011): 90–100.

Eigo, Tim. "Afghan Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 17–30.

online

Lipson, Juliene G., and Patricia A. Omidian. “Afghans.” In Refugees in America in the 1990s: A Reference Handbook, edited by David W. Haines. (Greenwood Press, 1996).

Thernstrom, Stephan, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) pp 3–5.

Afghan American Demographics

Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce

(Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2001)