How Did Fremont Come to Be Known as ‘Little Kabul’?

View the full episode transcript.

On a typical afternoon, shoppers pour in and out of Maiwand Market in Fremont’s Centerville District, making a beeline for the bakery, where traditional Afghan naan is made fresh each day. Customers bag their loaves up themselves at a nearby table — some stocking up on a dozen at a time. A short walk in either direction leads to additional grocery stores and restaurants serving Afghan delicacies like beef kabobs, bolani kachaloo and qabilil pallow.

Fremont is home to one of the largest concentrations of Afghans in the United States. Over the past 40-some years, this community — often celebrated for its thriving tech industry and diverse population — has even become known as Little Kabul.

It’s a fact that has made its way into pop culture, including the 2023 indie film Fremont and Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel, The Kite Runner.

The name Little Kabul, along with the frequent cultural references, got one Bay Curious listener wondering: How did Fremont become a cultural hub for so many Afghan Americans?

The answer goes back more than 45 years and can be broken down into four distinct waves of immigration, each based on a moment of conflict and political change in Afghanistan. But, it’s also a story of people fleeing their home country, a place they love, and looking for community and something familiar in their new home.

Soviets invade Afghanistan, spark first major exodus

The first wave of Afghan immigrants left home during the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR seized military control of Kabul and transformed the country into a war zone. Millions of Afghans were killed and millions more were forced to flee.

This wave of refugees included ordinary civilians and religious minorities, as well as those who had held government jobs under previous administrations. Many Afghans fled to neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan. Others immigrated to the United States.

“We didn’t come by our choice; we were forced to leave the country,” said Hanifa Sai Tokhi, a volunteer who helps run the Afghan Elderly Association’s Healthy Aging Program in Fremont. “I was crying for two and a half years.”

Tokhi vividly remembers leaving Afghanistan 47 years ago. Her husband was a government employee under Afghan President Mohammad Daoud Khan. After the Soviet invasion, their family received a notice that he would be arrested for his work under the country’s previous leadership.

With just $1,000 to their names, Tokhi, her husband and their two small children made their way to the Bay Area. By the time they joined their extended family in San Jose, Tokhi said they had just $22 left.

Tokhi, who had been an assistant professor of chemistry and biology back in Kabul, said that establishing herself in California was hard. She and her husband struggled to pay the mortgage and sometimes went without electricity. But eventually, they got political asylum and work permits. They were able to land jobs in the early days of Silicon Valley.

Like so many immigrant communities, Afghans like Tokhi came to Northern California because they knew someone in the area. When it was no longer safe to stay in Afghanistan, entire families relocated to where family members had come for work or school.

“Fremont was like a magnet for Afghans to come and join this beautiful city,” said Dr. Masoud Juya, the associate director of the Afghan Coalition. “One reason that [is] a big attractive factor for Afghans is definitely this landscape, the beauty, the geography, and the weather.”

The East Bay hills reminded many Afghans of the mountainous terrain of their homeland. Entrepreneurial immigrants opened mosques, rug stores, and halal butcher shops. Specialty grocery stores like Maiwand Market soon opened their doors, offering fresh bread and other imported goods to local Afghans.

The city of Fremont supported these endeavors by offering grants to Afghan business owners.

Fremont was more affordable than bigger cities like San Francisco or Oakland, and California also had generous welfare benefits that helped people get resettled here.

“Slowly it started to get built until this city was called ‘Little Kabul,’ which is a very attractive name,” said Juya.

A civil war prompts more people to leave Afghanistan

The second wave of immigration took place in the 1990s during the Afghan Civil War, following the collapse of the Soviet-backed Afghan government. The war took place between different ethnic groups and eventually resulted in the Taliban’s rise to power.

Though Juya was in elementary school at the time, he still remembers how tumultuous and disruptive the civil war was. Tens of thousands of Afghans — mostly civilians — were killed throughout the conflict.

“A lot of homes were destroyed due to the civil war, and our home was no exception,” Juya recalled, adding that he had been buried under the rubble. His family was displaced to a new city, though many Afghans left Afghanistan altogether.

Again, many migrated to the United States.

“When they ended up here, then the first question they asked was like, ‘OK, which state has more Afghans? Let’s go and join our communities there,’” Juya said.

When the second wave of immigrants arrived in Northern California, the first wave was ready to help them get settled. The Afghan Coalition, was established in Fremont during this time. Since 1996, the mission of this international organization has been to offer social services to Afghan refugees, including assistance with housing, professional resources and mental health support.

The Afghan Elderly Association was founded a year earlier to provide Afghans with culturally appropriate health programs. The organization’s founders went door-to-door, individually recruiting each elder.

“We were going with these ladies to advocate to the doctors and translate,” said Tokhi, who worked with the group as a health promoter. “We were going to their homes. We were doing medication management. Sometimes they cannot read English, and we would ask, ‘What is this medicine for?’”

But the organization knew that healthy living wasn’t just about medication and doctor’s visits. There needed to be a social element, which they eventually offered through its Healthy Aging Program. Each week, the program offers a hot meal, exercise classes and medical check-ups from Afghan nurses who speak Farsi.

“They brought these ladies out of isolation,” Tokhi said. She now helps run the program as a volunteer. “There is some gossip, too,” Tokhi said with a laugh. “I have to have gossip.”

Programs like this created more opportunities for immigrants to feel comfortable and connected when they got to Fremont. And the city supported them. For years, Fremont’s Human Services Department collaborated with the Afghan Elderly Association by providing staffing support, along with office and meeting spaces.

9/11 upends the social order in Afghanistan

The third wave of immigration to Fremont occurred after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The United States sent troops into Afghanistan to oust the Taliban leaders, sparking an overseas conflict that continued for 20 years.

The toppling of the Taliban regime ushered in a new Afghan government and constitution. With the end of the Taliban’s religious extremism also came opportunities for women to work and girls to get an education.

“This was the beginning of a big change for Afghanistan,” said Juya. “It was the first time after all those dark periods that Afghanistan was connected to the rest of the world.”

Rather than needing to flee as refugees as in the earlier immigration waves, Afghans could finally come to the U.S. on cultural exchange programs or to study.

“They freely moved out of Afghanistan because of the opportunities that were available,” Juya said.

Juya himself first came to the United States during the third wave, in 2009. He’d just graduated medical school and was pursuing a Fulbright scholarship. He later traveled back and forth to Afghanistan, where he opened a successful university and a health science institute inspired by his time in the U.S.

“We put into practice pretty much every bit of information we learned here,” said Dr. Juya. “We were really revolutionists in terms of helping Afghanistan develop.”

While he’s grateful for all he learned studying in the U.S., the experience wasn’t all positive. He, like other Afghan immigrants, faced discrimination as a Muslim.*

“There is an added layer of difficulty because of stigma, discrimination,” he said. “This in itself is also another factor that might motivate community members to come together so that they prevent themselves from additional threats or risks.”

Even Fremont experienced that stigma. In 2001, local news outlets reported on hate crimes directed at Afghans, including death threats and a smashed store window around Little Kabul. A few days later, the owner of the vandalized store put an American flag in those same windows to show his loyalty to the U.S.

Years later, Afghan Americans asked the City Council to formally recognize the area known as Little Kabul. However, the initiative stalled after local businesses banded together to oppose the idea.

US troops withdraw from Afghanistan

The fourth and largest wave of immigration started in 2021 with President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Almost immediately, the Taliban returned to power and anyone who had participated in opening Afghanistan up, making it more liberal and democratic, was in danger. People like Juya.

“I was fighting hard as a member of my community against extremism,” Juya said. “I was really at high risk, and I had to leave as soon as I could.”

Juya eventually left Afghanistan through an American Ph.D. program, after which he settled in Concord in search of a stable life.**

He is one of roughly 10,000 Afghans who ended up in California after the 2021 withdrawal. The refugees during this fourth wave came from all parts of Afghan society, including academics, musicians, journalists, human rights advocates, and those who had worked with the U.S. military and allied forces.

So many people wanted to get out of Afghanistan during the hectic withdrawal that some people sprinted after U.S. military planes trying to get onboard and others held onto the wings as the planes took off.

As these horrific scenes unfolded, the City of Fremont again stepped up to support its local Afghan community. The Human Services Department raised $485,000 for an Afghan Refugee Help Fund, which paid for necessities like filing immigration documents, temporary housing, new cell phones, mental health resources, and driving lessons for recent arrivals. The effort was coordinated in collaboration with Afghan organizations and businesses.

As ever, the Afghans who had already established themselves in the Bay Area mobilized to help newcomers.

Soon after Juya arrived in Fremont, his fellow Afghans hired him to help run the Afghan Coalition. But, he said, the volume of new Afghan arrivals has made a competitive job market even tougher. And many people don’t have the skills to fit into Silicon Valley’s high-tech, AI-driven economy.

“They were professionals back home,” he said. “They come here but they cannot find a professional job, so I see a lot of frustration for some of the young, talented Afghans.” Many are hustling as DoorDash or Uber drivers.

Promoting ‘positive energy’

The music composer and producer Hasib Sepand was lucky enough to arrive in Fremont before the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan. He opened a music school, called The Sepand Music Academy. Just six months later, the Taliban came back to power.

“Nobody was interested in music, even myself,” he said. “We were like mentally very depressed. I didn’t have that courage to play music because my family’s over there.”

Sepand came from a family of well-known musicians in Afghanistan, who were forced to relocate to Pakistan after the Taliban’s first rise to power. During the U.S. war with Afghanistan, Sepand’s family had also worked with the American Army. They were able to qualify for Special Immigrant Visas.

“The last American plane that flew from Afghanistan included my family,” Sepand said. “It’s like a film.”

After he helped resettle his family in the Bay Area, Sepand reached out to the City of Fremont. They collaborated to offer three months of free music classes to new arrivals as a part of the Afghan Refugee Help Fund. Sepand taught students to sing traditional Afghan music and play instruments like the tabla and sitar.

“My class is not only a music class,” he said. “I tried to give a positive energy, especially for the newcomers, because they face a lot of problems. They face stress, depression, different culture, different language, sometimes no job.”

Sepand said that students would often tell him his music class was the highlight of their week.

Before he came to Fremont and learned the firsthand challenges of starting over in America, Sepand thought it would be a more glamorous place. But Fremont was not the America Hasib had pictured. Over time, as he has watched the community come together to support one another, he has come to love this place.

“Now, to me, it looks a hundred times better than every place in America because I live here and I have friends and I enjoy everything in Fremont,” Sepand said. “I love Fremont.”

*An earlier version of this story stated that Juya experienced discrimination for being Muslim and Arab. But Afghans are not Arab. We regret the error.

**A previous version of this story stated that Juya settled in Fremont. In fact, he lives in Concord.

Episode Transcript

This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.

Katrina Schwartz: Fremont is the fourth-largest town in the Bay Area, but it doesn’t always get the love it deserves. It’s a quiet place, but has a thriving tech industry, an incredibly diverse population and played an important role in the early silent film industry. It’s also home to one of the largest Afghan populations in the country…a fact that often shows up in pop culture.

Clip from Fremont: Do you live in Fremont? Are you also from Afghanistan? Yes, I am. On the Special Immigration Visa? Yes. I was a translator in Afghanistan.

Katrina Schwartz: That’s a clip from the 2023 indie film “Fremont” about a military translator starting over in Fremont after being forced to leave Afghanistan.

It’s a premise rooted in reality. Over the past 40-some years, Fremont’s Afghans have slowly built a cultural hub here. There’s even a business district known as Little Kabul.

That name, Little Kabul, sparked the interest of one Bay Curious listener who wanted to know more about how Fremont became home to so many Afghans.

Today on Bay Curious, we’re tracing four distinct waves of Afghan immigration to the U.S. and illuminating how 40 years of U.S. foreign policy have led us to this point. We’ll meet Afghan refugees who’ve settled here, learn what makes this community unique and dig into some of the challenges they face.

I’m Katrina Schwartz, filling in for Olivia Allen-Price. Stay with us.

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Katrina Schwartz: Northern California is home to the largest concentration of Afghans in the United States. And many have settled in the Bay Area city of Fremont. Reporter Asal Ehsanipour went to find out why so many folks have decided to make this East Bay town home.

Asal Ehsanipour: Recently, I went to an Eid dinner to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Masoud Juya: We have, of course, the delicious kabuli pulao, which is a very common Afghan dish.

Asal Ehsanipour: Tables piled with plates of homemade rice and pastries made by local Afghans.

Masoud Juya: This is called simion. It’s a very popular dried fruit, usually during Eid, it is used in Afghanistan.

Asal Ehsanipour: Guiding me on this food tour is Dr. Masoud Juya, the associate director of a local nonprofit called the Afghan Coalition.

Masoud Juya: We have come here today to celebrate Eid and also to enjoy the Afghan culture, food, music. And to kind of enhance our collegiality, you know, over the joy and feast of Eid.

Asal Ehsanipour: Roughly 66,000 people of Afghan descent live in California, according to the 2019 Census. And historically, the highest concentration has been right here in Fremont. Making it one of the largest Afghan communities in the country.

Masoud Juya: Fremont was like a magnet for Afghans to come and join this beautiful city. And one reason that it’s a big attractive factor for Afghans is definitely this landscape, the beauty, the geography, and the weather.

Asal Ehsanipour: It doesn’t hurt that the East Bay has these majestic hills, which remind Afghans of home.

Masoud Juya: When you see these hills, it’s really reminiscent of those beautiful memories.

Asal Ehsanipour: Fremont’s Afghan community has been growing for decades. Masoud says you can break it down into four – distinct waves, each based on a moment of conflict and political change in Afghanistan.

The first wave of immigration began in the late 1970s when the USSR invaded Afghanistan and took control of Kabul.

News Clip: In 1979, the Soviet Union determined that Afghanistan would be a communist nation … forever.

Asal Ehsanipour: The Soviet invasion and the U.S. decision to arm rebel groups within Afghanistan as part of a proxy Cold War kicked off decades of instability for Afghanistan. Millions were killed. And millions more fled as refugees.

News Clip: In that decade of war, over 1,000 villages and towns have been destroyed by tanks and bombs.

Masoud Juya: The immigrants from that era were those who were persecuted by the communist regime.

Asal Ehsanipour: They included religious minorities and people who’d held government jobs.

Masoud Juya: As well as civilians, ordinary civilians who did not feel safe to stay in the country.

Asal Ehsanipour: Many Afghans fled to neighboring countries, like Iran and Pakistan. Others came to America.

Masoud Juya: Some of them ended up in Virginia first, and then they knew somebody who had recently come to this part of the country, and they were satisfied. So then they talked together and they decided to join each other here.

Asal Ehsanipour: Like so many immigrant communities, Afghans came to California because that’s where they knew people. If entire families were to uproot their lives and move across the world, they needed to stick together.

At a weekly health event put on by the Afghan Elderly Association, women I met said they’d followed family members who’d come to Fremont for work or school.

Woman 1: My daughter, she went to San José State.

Woman 2: Aunts and uncle. 

Woman 3: My friend, my relative.

Woman 2: Everybody was here in Fremont, so I came to join them, join the group.

Asal Ehsanipour: Hanifa Sai Tokhi came to the Bay Area 47 years ago. But she still feels the pain of leaving Afghanistan.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: I was crying for two and a half years. We didn’t come by our choice. We were forced to leave the country.

Asal Ehsanipour: Hanifa’s husband had worked for the Afghan government before the Soviet invasion. One day, they heard a knock at the door.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: They sent the notices that they’re going to arrest him and put him in jail. And even they told him to be ready when the soldiers come, go with them.

Asal Ehsanipour: With just $1,000 to their names, Hanifa, her husband, and their two small children made their way to the Bay Area. Hanifa had a brother-in-law in San Jose.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: By the time we came, we had $22 because most of the money was spent.

Asal Ehsanipour: Hanifa says life was hard. They struggled to pay the mortgage, sometimes went without electricity. Eventually, she and her husband got political asylum and work permits, applied for jobs in the early days of Silicon Valley.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: But then, there is not a lot of people coming to San Jose, but mostly was coming to Fremont.

Asal Ehsanipour: Almost immediately, Fremont became the center of Afghan life. Grocery stores like Maiwand Market sold tastes of home. And immigrants opened mosques, rug stores, and Halal butcher shops. And the City of Fremont supported them. It offered grants to help Afghan business owners get started.

Masoud Juya: Slowly, it started to get built. Until this city was called Little Kabul, which is a very attractive name.

Asal Ehsanipour: Masoud Juya says Fremont was more affordable than bigger cities like San Francisco or Oakland. Plus, California had generous welfare benefits that helped people get resettled here.

So, Afghans trickled into Fremont throughout the 1980s until the next big wave of immigration a decade later.

Masoud Juya: The second wave actually was in the 1990s, when Afghanistan was experiencing a civil war.

News clip: The Shiite Southwest District of Kabul begin the latest battlefield in the fight to control Afghanistan’s capital.

Asal Ehsanipour: The civil war was between different ethnic groups in Afghanistan and resulted in the Taliban’s rise to power.

Masoud remembers how tumultuous and disruptive that time was.

Masoud Juya: I was actually in the primary school, and the war was terrible.

News clip: Rebels reportedly fired hundreds of rockets in the residential area.

Masoud Juya: A lot of homes were destroyed due to the civil war, and our home was no exception. So every Afghan was doing their best to get out of the country.

Asal Ehsanipour: Again, many Afghans came to the U.S.

Masoud Juya: When they ended up here, then the first question they asked was like, OK, which state has more Afghans? Let’s go and join our communities there.

Asal Ehsanipour: When the second wave of immigrants got to Fremont, the first wave was ready to help them get settled. That’s how Masoud’s organization, the Afghan Coalition, was founded in 1996. Since then, they’ve offered social services to Afghan refugees, helping them find housing, jobs, and mental health support.

And it was around the time the Afghan Elderly Association started its work. The founders went door to door individually recruiting each member.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: I was working with this association for 16 years.

Asal Ehsanipour: Here’s Hanifa Sai Tokhi again. After leaving Afghanistan during the Soviet Invasion, she eventually became a health promoter for the Afghan Elderly Association. Her job was to bring culturally appropriate health services to older community members.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: We were going with these ladies to advocate to the doctors and translate. Like sometimes they cannot read English, and we would ask what is this medicine for?

Asal Ehsanipour: But the organization knew that healthy living wasn’t just about medication and doctor’s visits. There needed to be a social element. So, they created the Healthy Aging Program. And, it still exists!

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: They brought these ladies out of isolation.

Asal Ehsanipour: Here, each week, they offer a hot meal, exercise classes and medical check-ups from Afghan nurses who speak Farsi.

Hanifa Sai Tokhi: And also, there is some gossip, too. I have to have gossip.

Asal Ehsanipour: Programs like this created more opportunities for immigrants to feel comfortable and connected when they got to Fremont. And for years, the city of Fremont’s Human Services Department collaborated with the Afghan Elderly Association. They provided staffing support, along with office and meeting spaces.

And so with that second wave, the Afghan community was growing. Thriving in a Fremont bubble, until the 9/11 attacks put the international spotlight back on Afghanistan.

News clip: We have a very tragic alert for you right now. An incredible plane crash into the World Trade Center here at the lower tip of Manhattan.

George W. Bush: On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime and Afghanistan.

Masoud Juya: The Taliban government was toppled post-9/11, and a new administration was built in Afghanistan.

Asal Ehsanipour: With the new government came a new constitution. It meant an end to the Taliban’s religious extremism, opportunities for women to work, and girls to get an education.

Masoud Juya: So this was the beginning of a big change for Afghanistan. It was the first time after all those dark periods that Afghanistan was connected to the rest of the world.

Asal Ehsanipour: Rather than needing to flee as refugees, people could finally come to the U.S. on cultural exchange programs or to study. But when they got here, they were faced with a very Islamophobic America.

Masoud Juya: When there is maybe an added layer of difficulty because of stigma, discrimination, or whatsoever, this in itself is also another factor that might motivate community members to come together so that they prevent themselves from additional threats or risks.

Asal Ehsanipour: Masoud first came to the U.S. during this third wave after the fall of the Taliban. He wanted to learn as much as he could and bring that knowledge back to Afghanistan.

Masoud Juya: We put into practice pretty much every bit of information we learned here. And we were really, in our own sense, we were really revolutionists in terms of helping Afghanistan develop.

Asal Ehsanipour: Inspired by his time in the States, he opened a successful university and a health science institute.

Masoud Juya: And that’s why people like me were always staying there until we really had to leave post-2021.

Asal Ehsanipour: 2021, when the United States withdrew from Afghanistan.

Joe Biden: I concluded it’s time to end America’s longest war. It’s time for American troops to come home.

Asal Ehsanipour: The Taliban took back control of the country.

News clip: The Taliban advance appears unstoppable. Ruthless as ever, to those who stand in their way.

Asal Ehsanipour: This U.S. policy decision caused the fourth and most recent wave of immigration.

News clip: Now the Taliban is back, anyone who worked for the Afghan government has fled or is in hiding. Women and girls live in fear.

Asal Ehsanipour: Masoud was also afraid. He had been at the forefront of trying to rebuild a more liberal, democratic Afghanistan. But now, all of that was smoke.

Masoud Juya: I was fighting hard as a member of my community against extremism. So I was really at high risk, and I had to leave as soon as I could.

Asal Ehsanipour: Masoud explored every avenue and eventually got out through an American Ph.D. program.

Masoud Juya: But after I completed my Ph.D., then I was thinking of staying somewhere for a stable life.

Asal Ehsanipour: The obvious choice: Fremont. Masoud is one of roughly 10,000 Afghans who ended up in California after the 2021 withdrawal. And this time, the refugees came from all parts of Afghan society.

Masoud Juya: The fourth wave is actually a very, very different group of people: vocalists, musicians, academics.

Asal Ehsanipour: Journalists and human rights advocates, too.

Masoud Juya: More importantly, people who really worked with the Afghan government and the U.S. Government.

Asal Ehsanipour: Including members of the U.S. military and allied forces.

Masoud Juya: But then there were also some civilians who just went to the airport because they are also afraid.

Asal Ehsanipour: You might remember news footage of desperate Afghans sprinting after U.S. military planes trying to get onboard. Some even held onto the wings as the planes took off.

Masoud Juya: People who were really scared of their lives.

Asal Ehsanipour: As these horrific scenes unfolded, the city of Fremont again stepped up to support the Afghan community. It raised $485,000 for an Afghan Refugee Help Fund … to help pay for things like filing immigration documents, temporary housing, mental health resources, and driving lessons for recent arrivals. This was done in collaboration with Afghan organizations and businesses. As ever, those who had already established themselves mobilized to help newcomers. And new immigrants leveraged what earlier waves had built.

Masoud Juya: Yeah, all these resources that Afghans created, institutions that they built, connections that they had, the knowledge that they have from navigating the U.S. System, I think they were all transferred into the new waves.

Asal Ehsanipour: When Masoud got to Fremont, his expertise building institutions in Afghanistan made him the perfect guy for a job at the Afghan Coalition, helping other refugees get settled. But he was one of the lucky few.

Masoud Juya: Afghans come here, and I see they were professionals back home. They come here, but they cannot find a professional job.

Asal Ehsanipour: This fourth wave is bigger than the prior ones. And people don’t have the skills to fit into the Bay Area’s high-tech, AI-driven economy.

Masoud Juya: So I see a lot of frustration for some of the young, talented Afghans.

Asal Ehsanipour: One of those young, talented Afghans is Hasib Sepand. He arrived in Fremont before the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan and started a music school, called The Sepand Academy … Just six months later, the Taliban came back to power.

Hasib Sepand: Nobody was interested in music, even myself. So, we were like mentally very depressed. I didn’t have that courage to play music. Because my family’s over there. 

Asal Ehsanipour: Like Hasib, his family were musicians. And Hasib’s siblings had also worked with the American Army. Because of that, they were able to qualify for Special Immigrant Visas.

Hasib Sepand: And the last American plane that flew from Afghanistan included my family. It’s like a film.

Asal Ehsanipour: Hasib was so grateful his family made it to safety, he wanted to help other newcomers. With the city’s help, Hasib offered three months of free music classes to new arrivals. They sang and played instruments like the tabla and sitar. You’re hearing them play now.

Sounds of music class playing

Hasib Sepand: I tried to give a positive energy, especially for the newcomers, because they face a lot of problems. They face stress, depression, different culture, different language, sometimes no job.

Asal Ehsanipour: Hasib says before he came to Fremont — before he knew anything about how hard it would be to live in the U.S. — he thought it would be a more glamorous place.

Hasib Sepand: My Afghan friends, they used to tell me, “OK, so you are going to Fremont. Oh my god. That’s a dream city.” And they gave me kind of like wrong imagination.

Asal Ehsanipour: This was not the “America” Hasib had pictured. But as he’s watched the community come together to support one another, he’s come to love this place.

Hasib Sepand: Now, to me, it looks a hundred times better than every place in America because I live here and I have friends and I enjoy everything in Fremont.

Asal Ehsanipour: He says he loves the people, the fellowship created at local Afghan bakeries and banquet halls.

Hasib Sepand: Right now, I feel that I’m in Afghanistan. I’m in my hometown. Most of the time, I don’t speak English because everywhere I go is like Afghans. And when my friends come from Canada or from Europe, they are jealous. I love Fremont.

Asal Ehsanipour: Or as Hasib calls it: Little Kabul.

Katrina Schwartz: That was reporter Asal Ehsanipour.

Fremont’s Afghan community is under threat once again. President Trump recently announced plans to end temporary protected status for a host of countries, including Afghanistan. The administration also put a halt to most refugee resettlements programs.

The other big difficulty facing this community is cost of living in the Bay Area. More Afghans are choosing to settle in Sacramento than Fremont now because it’s more affordable.

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