When Zahra Wahidy immigrated to Minnesota in 2022, the only other Afghan she knew was her younger brother.
Like other new Afghan refugees in the Twin Cities, she decided to meet people at the Afghan Cultural Society in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. "I didn't know any of them," she said.
Then she spotted a former co-worker from Kabul. "I just felt so emotional," she said.
A year later, Wahidy has established roots in Minneapolis. She organizes mental health programming for women at the Afghan Cultural Society, and she lives in the same apartment as her former co-worker from Kabul.
Wahidy belongs to one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in Minnesota, according to U.S. Census data released this September. The Taliban's takeover of the Afghan government in August 2021 sparked an unprecedented evacuation of Afghan civilians, resulting in one of the largest airlifts in history.
According to the the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey, 332 people in Minnesota in 2018 reported being born in Afghanistan, a number that stayed fairly consistent for several years. But by 2022, that number jumped to 1,107 people.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services has reported that even more Afghans live in the state. More than 1,300 evacuees came to Minnesota between September 2021 and September 2022, according to the department.
As Minnesota's Afghan refugee population has grown, the Cultural Society — which began as a cultural and educational organization — has taken on the role of a refugee resettlement agency. The society, which opened its first office and community space in 2022, helps Afghan evacuees start new lives in Minnesota with the help of state agencies and other local nonprofits.