Ali Sabri Najafi , a part-time student, has become more cautious to talk about where he’s from with strangers—saying he’s from Iran.

But the truth is, Najafi , an Afghan-American, has experienced hostile perceptions from fellow Americans since 9/11.

“I was working a RadioShack a while ago and people would make small talk and ask where I’m from,” Najafi said. “Then they would say, ‘alright, I’ll get help from somebody else.'”

However, born and raised in the U.S ., Najafi doesn’t see his Afghan heritage as conflicting with his American citizenship. To Najafi , the U.S . was the “promise land” to his refugee family.

“I haven’t really asked, but my parents left at the end of the conflict with the Soviet Union or during the beginning of the civil war that started right after in the 80s ,” Najafi said. “They went to Germany, which was a checkpoint, but then they came to the U.S.”

Never having visited Afghanistan, Najafi regrets not having been immersed in his ancestral culture. However, Najafi isn’t disconnected to his Afghan roots.

His mother, who works as a translator on an American base in Kabul, is working to get him to visit. He also has family still living in Afghanistan and close cousins who were born and raised there.

“I keep up with culture through the language mostly,” Najafi said. “I speak Dari at home. I hang out with a lot of Afghan kids and I have cousins who grew up in Afghanistan and they’ll keep me in touch with everything. Sometimes we’ll be sitting around a circle and joking and sometimes I feel like this is how it might have been if I was back home, in Afghanistan.”

The tone of Najafi is one of nostalgia, although he’s never visited his country. It’s a nostalgia for the past, the former Afghanistan that he wishes to see again.

“You’d be surprised, but I would like to see Afghanistan like what it was like before the Soviet war,” Najafi said. “It wasn’t like what it was today. It wasn’t in shambles. It was beautiful. There was a stable government. I don’t think we would be a third world country if it wasn’t for the Soviet invasion.”

But turmoil in the country has made talking about his family’s home country an uncomfortable topic at times.

“I ask them about stories from the past, but whenever I ask them, they just reference the hard times,” Najafi said. “I can tell it wasn’t good to be in Afghanistan then. And it’s doing really poorly now.”

However, Najafi said many Americans have a misconception who Afghans really are.

“A lot of people look at us like we’re one big bomb squad, but it’s not that,” Najafi said. “Those people don’t have anything. A lot of them are tired of the war and the killing. And the majority of the people working against the Americans and the Afghan government are from the countryside and are uneducated.”

In consideration to negative perceptions for Afghans in the U.S ., Najafi said he doesn’t blame people who disrespect him.

“People are people and I brush it off,” Najafi said. “You have to learn that quick, but I guess it’s like how the Japanese felt after Pearl Harbor. When I tell people where I’m from, you can just see their face changing when they find out I’m Afghani.”

Although Najafi has changed how he opens up to strangers, he nevertheless sees himself as a part of America. And despite his mixed opinions on the war, which he said he supported since the beginning, he said he sees the Afghan future as one that can be redefined.

“Honestly, as a Muslim, I don’t understand how the Taliban can justify killing other people and see it for a cause,” he said. “I don’t see how they can use religion as a justification. Or how they can drag other people into it. No doubt, they are giving Muslims a bad rap. I want to come off as an average person, because that’s who I am, to demonstrate that Muslim and Afghans aren’t like them.”

Najafi said he is uncertain on how he feels about the future of Afghanistan, but he sees himself serving his home he’s never visited. He said democracy and peace would be a good thing, but most importantly, he would like to inspire young people.

“I’ve been fortunate to grow up here and keep up with my culture at home,” Najafi said. “And with that I want to serve them, no doubt. That’s why I’m going to school and the one thing I’ve learned from an Afghan background and then growing up in the U.S ., that there is more out there, and to share that hope with other kids, that this isn’t how it has to be.”