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Afghan Refugee Issues in the U.S. Social Environment

School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco

Patricia A. Omidian

Department of Anthropology, California State University, Hayward

Since Afghan refugees began coming to the United States in the early 1980s, the Afghan community of the San Francisco Bay Area has become the largest in the United States. This population copes with a number of stressors that negatively affect their health and psychological well-being. Based on an ethnographic study, we focus on the social context in which Afghan refugees find themselves, describing Afghans'perceptions of their interactions with mainstream American citizens and health and social service providers. The theme running through all such interactions is information-its scarcity, character, and cultural differences in type, purposes, and means of transmission. Quotes from interviews illustrate four types of problems: economic and occupational problems, health-care access, family and children's issues, and immigration issues/ethnic bias. Policy and program recommendations are applicable to other recent refugee populations that experience similar information problems with regard to the dominant society.

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