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Local Afghan community celebrates resilience during Yalda Night

Published 1:30 am Saturday, January 10, 2026

By Keelin Everly-Lang

Sabrina Ibrahimkhail is a local women’s rights activist, writer, poet and businesswoman and the founder and executive director of Afghan Women’s Empowerment in Oregon. Here she shares poetry at Yalda Night on Dec. 20. Courtesy photo.
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Sabrina Ibrahimkhail is a local women’s rights activist, writer, poet and businesswoman and the founder and executive director of Afghan Women’s Empowerment in Oregon. Here she shares poetry at Yalda Night on Dec. 20. Courtesy photo.

Sabrina Ibrahimkhail is a local women’s rights activist, writer, poet and businesswoman and the founder and executive director of Afghan Women’s Empowerment in Oregon. Here she shares poetry at Yalda Night on Dec. 20. Courtesy photo.
Sabrina Ibrahimkhail is a local women’s rights activist, writer, poet and businesswoman and the founder and executive director of Afghan Women’s Empowerment in Oregon. Here she shares poetry at Yalda Night on Dec. 20. Courtesy photos.
Director of Kabul Washington Bridge Wahid Bihroz speaks at Yalda Night at the community event they organized.
Yalda Night brought together members of the Afghan diaspora and welcomed many others to join and experience the tradition, which is thousands of years old.

Federal Way community members shared poems and ate traditional treats of pomegranates and homemade cookies at a celebration of Persian holiday Yalda Night, or Shab-e Yalda (or Chela, depending on the region) on Dec. 20 in SeaTac at an event that brought together around 100 attendees.

The holiday has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years in the Middle East and Central Asian countries. Participants mark the longest night of the year by gathering together to stay up all night and watch the sun rise together.

Community members traditionally pass the long and dark hours by sharing and discussing poetry by Persian poet Hafez, playing music, and sharing reflections and history as they eat and drink tea together.

Federal Way-based organization Kabul Washington Bridge, a hub and resource for the Afghan community, put together the event in partnership with Sound Transit and welcomed a diverse gathering of people.

To understand just how large the local Afghan community is, Dari is the third most commonly spoken language at home for students in Federal Way Public Schools, after only English and Spanish, and is the most commonly spoken language in Afghanistan. The second most common language in Afghanistan is Pashto, which is the fifth most common language for Federal Way students, according to the school district.

The celebration of Yalda Night was an opportunity to continue the celebration of history and culture with the next generation, Kabul Washington Bridge Director Wahid Bihroz told the Mirror.

Bihroz moved to the United States from Afghanistan in 2017 after working for the U.S. Embassy there, and said although he’s tried living in places other than Federal Way, the city keeps calling him back due to its welcoming atmosphere and diversity.

Bihroz started Kabul Washington to support newcomers to the community from Afghanistan, and the organization does a variety of work. Next year they hope to hold the event in Federal Way.

The event was especially meaningful because of efforts by the Taliban to suppress the celebration of the holiday, labeling it un-Islamic, and the suppression of women’s rights, specifically in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Diaspora Network shared in an article on Dec. 23 that “across cities such as Paris, Vienna, Graz, Hamburg, and beyond, these gatherings were more than seasonal celebrations. They were acts of cultural continuity, expressions of memory and resistance in the face of erasure.”

Bihroz told the Mirror that the local celebration was very exciting to see, especially because of the challenges their community is facing at home.

“People are suffering a lot from their own country of origin…girls can’t go to school, so to be able to be sharing a poem, dance and be open…here you can learn, you can teach, you can have a bright future,” Bihroz said.

Bihroz has two daughters who are attending school in Federal Way, including one who just started kindergarten this year. He lives in the city with his wife and daughters, but said the contrast is clear in his own family — his sister is still in Afghanistan and cannot attend school.

While family members face challenges at home, the local Afghan community is also facing uncertainty as their immigration and work authorization is threatened by the current administration.

“People of our community are in shock,” Bihroz told the Mirror. “They don’t know what the future will be.”

Despite these challenges, Kabul Washington Bridge has a focus on giving to the community they are now a part of, as is clear with the volunteering of members to support during recent floods.

Local women’s rights activist, writer and poet Sabrina Ibrahimkhail shared a poem at Yalda Night that expresses this sentiment (translated):

“Yalda, more than anything has a philosophical question in her heart: if darkness reaches its end, is it the end or the beginning? Yalda’s answer is clear: just at the moment when the night reaches its highest altitude, the path of light changes. This is the logic of existence: the peak of suffering contains the secret of rotation.”

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