A child of Afghani refugees, Mir-Aedrees Sekandari got used to helping his parents bridge language and cultural barriers from a very young age.
His parents fled during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“When they came to America and had us, they had a very difficult time of going through the systems. When they came to Arizona back then it was completely inaccessible. They had to manage learning English not through ESL classes but by watching TV,” Sekandari said. “As a young child I had to help my parents with documentation and some extremely complex vocabulary. I didn’t know what taxes were. I was filing for the IRS and I was like 6.”
