Workbook
For Afghan (American) Families
A Workbook for the Families Who Left Before 2021 and the Families Who Left After — and What It Means to Build Home Now
You did not choose to leave. You are choosing what to build. This is where you write that down.
Afghan American families who arrived before 2021 and families who arrived after — navigating the shared experience of displacement alongside the different circumstances of leaving. Families carrying the weight of what was left behind and the work of building something real from here.
The Name It First Experience
Your family left Afghanistan. The circumstances differ — the year, the danger, the degree of choice — but the weight is the same: something real was lost, something new had to be built, and the gap between those two things is where your family has been living. This workbook does not ask your family to resolve that gap or agree on everything. It asks you to name — together and on paper — what Afghan identity means in your specific household, what you are carrying on purpose, and what you are choosing to build from here. Grounded in Racial Identity Development theory (Cross, Helms), Acculturation Theory (Berry), Intersectionality (Crenshaw), diasporic identity scholarship (Brah, Hall), and research on Afghan American diaspora identity and refugee family dynamics, this workbook gives your family a structure to have the conversation that has been waiting. The work is yours to do together. This is where you write it down. You leave with The Afghan American Family Charter.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What is the name of what your family lost when you left — not the country, but the specific thing that has no replacement here?
- When your family talks about Afghanistan, what do you talk about — and what do you not talk about?
- What is the one Afghan value your family is determined to carry — the thing you are building into your life here on purpose?
Research basis
Cross (1971, 1991) Nigrescence Model adapted for Middle Eastern/South Asian American identity / Helms (1990) racial identity statuses / Berry (1997) acculturation strategies with focus on refugee adaptation / Crenshaw (1989, 1991) intersectionality applied to ethnicity, religion, and gender / Brah (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora applied to Afghan diaspora / Hall (1990) Cultural Identity and Diaspora / Boss (1999) Ambiguous Loss applied to displacement and homeland / cultural frameworks of Pashtunwali (honor code), nang (honor), Islamic values, and Afghan kinship structures in diaspora identity / Lipson & Omidian (1997) on Afghan refugee health and identity / Mirzaei (2015) on Afghan diaspora identity / post-2021 Afghan evacuation and resettlement identity dynamics / refugee family intergenerational dynamics (Rousseau et al., 2004).
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