Afghan refugees struggle to adjust to life in the US

One year since the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, families who have been resettled face myriad challenges.

San Jose, California, United States – Zainab, a teenager from Afghanistan who has lived in a cramped California motel room with her family for nearly a year, still has scars on her wrist from the shattered glass of a suicide bombing.

For Afghan families who have been resettled in the United States since the administration of President Joe Biden pulled military forces from Afghanistan last August, it has not been easy adjusting to life in a new country.

“I have very high anxiety; my family is in danger,” Aziz, who worked as a contractor for the US Embassy in Kabul, told Al Jazeera.

“A lot of families are still in temporary housing, because rent is so expensive,” Zuhal Bahaduri, who assists families through the community organisation 5ive Pillars, told Al Jazeera.

He is my everything,” she told Al Jazeera.

A network of resettlement groups and community organisations are helping these families, but they are stretched to their limits, trying to fill gaps after resources for refugees were hollowed out during the administration of former US President Donald Trump.

5ive Pillars, which offers assistance to many of the families at the hotel, was founded in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul.

Many community organisations and Afghan American volunteers, who help with everything from food to legal assistance, are feeling strained and burned out – not only from the overwhelming demands, but also from the emotional nature of the work.

Arash Azizzada, co-founder of the progressive diaspora group Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, told Al Jazeera that state and federal governments have left “Afghan community organisations to pick up the pieces, most of which are underfunded, under-resourced, and on the verge of burnout”.

“We’re trying to place people in good-paying jobs, but if they don’t have more permanent legal status, everything is uncertain,” Yalda Afif, programme manager for the refugee assistance organisation HIAS, told Al Jazeera