"Without music, I could not live — not even for one hour," said another Afghan singer, Mahwash, through a translator. Mahwash, who like many Afghans uses just one name, lives in Fremont, the nation's ...

The first time Arson Fahim saw a piano is seared into his memory. He was a young boy, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan, when he saw the film The Pianist. "I saw this movie and I was, like, 'Wow, how can ...