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AFGHANS — THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE CULTURE PROFILE  
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CONTENTS | PREFACE | INTRODUCTION | LAND | ECONOMY | PEOPLE | HISTORY | RELIGION | SOCIETY | FAMILY | VALUES | FESTIVITIES | FOOD | DRESS | MUSIC & LITERATURE | LANGUAGE & LITERACY | EDUCATION | CULTURAL CHALLENGES | BIBLIOGRAPHY  

 

Preface

This booklet is a basic introduction to the people, history and cultures of Afghanistan. It is designed primarily for service providers and others assisting the Afghan refugees in their new communities in the United States.

The principal writers are Dr. Barbara Robson and Dr. Juliene G. Lipson. Dr. Robson is a linguist and writer with many years of experience teaching, working, and traveling in the Middle East and South Asia and in the field of refugee and immigrant education. She has written textbooks on the Pashto language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and designed and implemented ESL and native language literacy projects in refugee camps in Thailand. Dr. Lipson is a medical anthropologist and professor in the School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco where she teaches community health and cross-cultural nursing. She is active in the Council on Nursing and Anthropology and the Council on Refugees and Immigrants of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. She did most of her ethnographic research on the San Francisco Bay Area Afghan community between 1987 and 1997.

Farid Younos, Ph.D., made significant contributions to the sections on Daily Life and Cultural Challenges. Dr. Younos is an Afghan-American social scientist and Islamic scholar who immigrated to the U.S. in 1979. He earned his doctorate from the University of San Francisco in international and multicultural education. He is a lecturer, educational consultant, and author on social issues in the Afghan community.

Mariam Mehdi, director of the International Catholic Migration Commission’s U.S. Refugee Resettlement and cultural orientation programs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, provided an up-to-the minute field perspective on the constantly changing situation of Afghan refugees awaiting admission to the U.S., as well as socio-economic data and special attention to the most pressing needs of women and children. Ms. Mehdi has over twenty-five years development experience in South Asia, working for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and U.N. Development Program (UNDP).

We would also like to thank our colleagues at CAL for their valuable contributions to the Educational Challenges section of this document. Miriam Burt, director of the National Center for ESL Literacy Education, has been involved with adult refugee education since 1975. Deborah J. Short, director of CAL’s Language Education and Academic Development division, conducts research projects on sheltered instruction and newcomer programs. She is also a teacher trainer and curriculum/materials developer.

Several people read and commented on drafts of the manuscript. In particular, we would like to thank: Razia Askaryar, PsyD candidate at the California School of Professional Psychology; Rona Popal, Executive Director of the Afghan Coalition in Fremont, California; Professor Shaista Wahab at the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection, University Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Kearn Schemm and Kelly Gauger, both Program Officer in the Admissions office at the State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration; the dedicated staff of the International Catholic Migration Commission in Pakistan; and Dora Johnson, Research Associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics.

We would also like to express our appreciation to Donald Ranard for his thorough and timely copyediting and proofreading assistance and to Vincent Sagart for his design expertise.

Finally, we would like to thank the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the U.S. Department of State, whose support made this culture profile possible.

 

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