Franco Uomo Is Proud to Sponsor the 3rd Annual Afghan American Heritage Month Celebration
Credit: danielluriesf on Instagram
August is Afghan American Heritage Month in San Francisco. This year, the city marked it the way it does its best work: by filling City Hall with the people who actually built this place.
I was there representing Franco Uomo as a sponsor of the 3rd Annual Celebration. I want to be honest about why that mattered to me personally, not just why it mattered to the brand.
Franco Uomo was honored to sponsor the 3rd Annual Afghan American Heritage Month celebration, hosted at San Francisco City Hall. For us, this was not a routine sponsorship. It was personal.
Why We Sponsored
Franco Uomo was founded by an Afghan American family. That's not a marketing point. It's the entire origin of why this brand exists and who it was built to serve. The Shuja family's story, building something in the Bay Area from the ground up, is the same story that filled that room at City Hall.
The families who arrived here in the 1980s as refugees, rebuilt careers overnight, opened businesses, raised children in a city that wasn't always ready for them. Those are not abstract people. They're the community this brand came from. When you understand that, showing up for Afghan American Heritage Month is not a sponsorship decision. It's a given.
I also think brands that are rooted in a community have a responsibility to invest in the spaces that honor it. This was one of those spaces, and I'm glad we were in the room.
What Afghan American Heritage Month Means
Four years ago, Mahanaz Ebadi, a legislative aide in Supervisor Matt Dorsey's office, drafted a proclamation to officially recognize Afghan American Heritage in San Francisco. All 13 city council members approved it. Shortly after, California designated August as Afghan American Heritage Month statewide.
This year's celebration was the third anniversary of that recognition. It was also the first time in all 50 states that Afghan American Heritage Month received this level of official civic ceremony.
San Francisco led the way.
The first Afghan families arrived in the Bay Area in the 1980s, most as refugees following the Soviet invasion. They came as doctors, engineers, teachers, and government officials who had lost everything overnight. What they rebuilt here is woven into this city. Small business owners, first responders, attorneys, elected advocates. Generations deep now, across every neighborhood in the Bay Area.
Aisha Wahab: Afghan American History Made Just Days Before
This celebration landed at a remarkable moment. Ten days before the gala, on August 18, 2026, Aisha Wahab won the special election for California's 14th Congressional District, becoming the first Afghan American ever elected to the United States Congress.
Born to Afghan refugees in New York City and raised in Fremont, Wahab had already made history in 2018 as one of the first Afghan Americans elected to public office in the US when she won her seat on the Hayward City Council. In 2022 she became the first Muslim and first Afghan American elected to the California State Senate. This month she broke through to the federal level, overcoming millions in outside opposition spending to win with over 53% of the vote.
She was not present at the gala. But her win was felt in every room. What Afghan Americans have built in California through decades of community organizing, civic service, and showing up made that moment possible. The celebration at San Francisco City Hall and Aisha Wahab's seat in Congress are part of the same story: Afghan Americans are not just part of American life, they are shaping it.
The People Who Made This Night Happen
Joseph Azam, board chair of the Afghan American Foundation, opened the evening. Joseph is an Afghan American lawyer and policy advisor who was born in Kabul and came to the US with his family seeking asylum in the 1980s. He went on to earn his law degree from UC Law San Francisco and has held senior legal roles at Oracle, HSBC, Accenture, and Cisco, all while leading the Afghan American Foundation's national advocacy work. His remarks set the tone for everything that followed: grounded, honest, and deeply proud of what this community has built.
Mayor Daniel Lurie welcomed the crowd and presented honors on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco. Born and raised in San Francisco, Mayor Lurie founded Tipping Point Community in 2005 and directed over $500 million toward housing, employment, education, and support services for Bay Area families before taking office as the city's 46th mayor. He recognized Afghan American first responders in the room, including SFPD Assistant Chief Ysef Azim, the first Afghan sergeant in the history of the San Francisco Police Department.
Nasrina Bargzie was recognized with a Certificate of Honor for her leadership and commitment to public service. Born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Nasrina's family fled during the Soviet invasion and spent three years as refugees in Pakistan before resettling in the East Bay in 1985. She went on to earn her law degree from UC Berkeley and built a career in civil rights law at the ACLU and the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. She later served as deputy counsel to Vice President Kamala Harris, advising on Muslim and Arab affairs, reproductive rights, voting, and democracy. Her story is a direct line from refugee to the highest levels of American public service.
Durana Elmi, co-founder and COO of Symbiotica, delivered the keynote address. Born in Afghanistan and raised in the Bay Area, Durana was named female entrepreneur of the year at the 2024 Titan Women in Business Awards. Her remarks were among the most powerful of the evening, particularly her words about the millions of Afghan girls currently being denied the right to go to school. She made clear that showing up in spaces like San Francisco City Hall is not just an honor. It is an obligation.
Mahanaz Ebadi, attorney and legislative aide at San Francisco City Hall, organized the entire evening. She drafted the resolution, advocated for it, and pushed it through. The celebration happening at all is a direct result of her vision and her work.
An Evening in Photos
The 3rd Annual Afghan American Heritage Month Celebration at San Francisco City Hall.
"Afghan Americans have been quietly shaping this country for decades. In our restaurants, in our businesses, in our courtrooms and classrooms. Having that recognized inside San Francisco City Hall, with elected officials standing beside our community, made that visible in a way that matters. At Franco Uomo we dress people for their most important moments, and this was one of ours."
Yosef Shuja
Chief Operating Officer, Franco Uomo
A Night That Meant Something
The people inside San Francisco City Hall that evening were the Afghan American community in full. Small business owners. Police officers and firefighters. Attorneys and educators. Parents sitting next to their children, seeing their community honored inside one of the most iconic civic buildings in the country.
One of the speakers that evening put it clearly: San Francisco's Afghan American community does not just live in this city. They make it run. The drivers, the food truck owners, the security guards who have watched over these buildings for decades, the business owners who open early and close late. They are not footnotes to San Francisco's story. They are the story.
Franco Uomo is proud to stand in that story alongside them.
Come See Us at Santana Row
If you are part of the Afghan American community in the Bay Area and you have a milestone worth dressing for, a wedding, a promotion, a new chapter, our team at Santana Row is here for it.
We understand what it means to dress with intention. And we understand who we are dressing.
Franco Uomo | 356 Santana Row, San Jose, CA 95128
By appointment. Walk-ins welcome.
Kane Dabir · Franco Uomo
