In a year in which U.S. policy toward Syrian refugees has become a presidential campaign issue, Ahmad Rafah is making the case that a previous generation of immigrants who fled war on the other side of the world has a part to play in U.S. politics.

Rafah’s parents fled Afghanistan during the war with the Soviet Union and were living in a refugee camp when he was born. Twenty-seven years later, Rafah is running for a seat on Santa Clara’s City Council in Tuesday’s election. He’s believed to be the first Afghan American to campaign for public office in the United States, said Waheed Momand, board president of the Afghan Coalition in Fremont.

The former aide to Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, acknowledges there’s attention being focused on him that wouldn’t ordinarily come to a candidate for local office in a South Bay suburb. Interest is especially high among the Bay Area’s large Afghan American expatriate population.

“Someday, hopefully someone with the name of Ahmad is going to feel comfortable and is not going to think it’s a big deal to run for office,” Rafah said.

There are 30,000 to 40,000 Afghan Americans in the Bay Area, most of them living in Fremont, Hayward and Concord, said Farid Senzai, president of Center for Global Policy in Washington, D.C. Like all immigrants, they’re usually focused on finding a job, a good home, and learning to navigate a country foreign to them. Politics, even voting, ends up taking a backseat, Senzai said.

The immigrant struggle was the reality for Rafah’s family through their journey as refugees and after they arrived in the U.S.

His mother was pregnant when the family fled Afghanistan in 1988, and one month after they arrived at a camp in Austria, Rafah was born. For two years, the family lived in barracks-like quarters at the camp that afforded no privacy. Finally, in 1990, their application for political asylum in the U.S. was granted, and the family settled in San Diego.

Rafah’s father, Hazrat Rafah, earned a medical degree from India, but had difficulty finding a job here because his medical credentials weren’t valid in the U.S.

“We had no money, no family, no house,” he said. “We were lucky that there was welfare. Life was hard. We were very poor.”

Hazrat Rafah wasn’t able to practice as a physician until his son was in college at California State University Bakersfield. Until then, the father worked at flea markets and community stores to support his family.

It’s a story that resonates with many immigrants. That helps to explain why, more than a quarter century after this wave of Afghan Americans began arriving in the U.S., Ahmad Rafah’s candidacy is a first.

It isn’t just Afghan Americans. There’s scant political participation among the children of immigrants of many largely Muslim nations, said Athar Siddiqee, president of the South Bay Islamic Association.

“We didn’t have our parents as role models, as political activists and people who were involved in civic engagement,” Siddiqee said. “I applaud Ahmad for being one of the first. I think you’ll see a lot more of that from the upcoming generation.”

There are few Afghan Americans in Santa Clara, but Rafah’s candidacy is pulling in support from first- and second-generation Afghans around the Bay Area. Momand, the Afghan Coalition board president, has held several fundraisers for Rafah and organized events designed to get Afghan Americans to register to vote.

“I told Ahmad Rafah that you’re a big experiment for us to see how we can encourage our community to register to vote and go vote,” Momand said.

As of Thursday, Rafah had raised $40,068 for his City Council campaign. All his donations have come from individuals, many of them from outside Santa Clara. Rafah says the majority are Afghan Americans and other Muslims.

“Ahmad has been working with the community over time, and so there’s a lot of interest from the Muslim community in his race,” said Zahra Billoo, the executive director for the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It is a big deal.”

For Rafah, running for City Council isn’t just about affordable housing, dealing with traffic congestion and encouraging his fellow Afghan Americans to vote. He wants to represent Muslim Americans at a time when he says Islamophobia is rampant — stoked by mass killings in San Bernardino and Orlando and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s warnings about the dangers of letting refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war into the U.S.

“This is worse than post-9/11,” Rafah said. “This came out of left field.”

Rafah is seeking to unseat Councilwoman Teresa O’Neil, who was elected to her first term in 2012. O’Neil said she’s known Rafah for a few years through his work for Honda and encouraged him to become more involved in politics. She even attended one of his campaign events early in the race, unaware that he would be vying for her seat, she added.

“I think he’s a very bright young man,” O’Neil said. “I still think I’m a better candidate for the council at this time. My depth and experience and knowledge of the community serves the community of Santa Clara better at this time.”

Win or lose, Rafah hopes his campaign inspires other Afghan Americans to give back to the country that provided them with a home.

“We were just given room here, so I feel more of a duty because I was chosen out of millions of other refugees,” Rafah said. “I feel like I need to serve this country because they’ve given us so much.”

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani