In recent years, Hmong growers \u2014 immigrants from the Southeast Asian nations of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China who speak Hmong-Mien languages \u2014 have established themselves in the Emerald Triangle\u2019s cannabis cultivation scene. Now, as California rolls out its regulatory system, many of the Hmong cannabis farmers are finding it difficult to negotiate the transition into licensed cultivation, like most cannabis farmers, but with added language and cultural barriers.<\/p>\n
But an advocacy group has emerged in Trinity County to help Hmong growers come into compliance. The group, Conscious Cannabis Resources, has been contacting hundreds of Hmong growers and trying to build bridges into the legal cannabis industry. This effort could help avoid discriminatory police enforcement against Hmong cannabis growers, which past years has been seen elsewhere in Northern California\u2019s cannabis belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here organizing and trying to gather all the small local growers here in Trinity County to stand up for their rights and fight back against a system that is set in place to tear them down,\u201d the group wrote in an\u00a0online statement in 2016<\/a>. \u201cThere are thousands of small family growers that stand to lose everything if we are not successful. We need the support of the cannabis community now, more than ever, to let the farmers who help make this industry what it is know that they are not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Victor Vang, a member of Conscious Cannabis Resources and a cannabis grower in Humboldt County,\u00a0told the North Coast Journal<\/a>\u00a0that Hmong cultivators are especially struggling to navigate the complicated legal lingo surrounding the nuances of California\u2019s cannabis legalization.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a language barrier definitely,\u201d Vang said. He especially pointed to the Trinity Pines area, south of the village of Hayfork, where tracts are being subdivided for cannabis cultivation, with a large concentration of Hmong growers. Many arrived there from Humboldt, seeking cheaper land in the backcountry.<\/p>\n Vang told the Journal that first-generation Hmong immigrants \u2014 many of whom arrived in the U.S. seeking asylum in the 1970s and 1980s after facing persecution in Laos \u2014 often draw on their background as agriculturalists in the high Southeast Asian mountains to apply their skills to cannabis cultivation in Northern California. He characterized them as folks with \u201ca green thumb\u2026 chasing that cash crop\u2026 They\u2019re just trying to get a piece of the American pie.\u201d<\/p>\n Vang said his small organization, with only two paid staffers and a handful of volunteers, provides translation and other assistance that can be vital in Trinity\u2019s often remote and off-grid communities. He estimated that the group has established contact with some 400 growers.<\/p>\n However, only a fraction of these cultivators has chosen to come in from the cold and comply with California\u2019s new regulatory regime. While the majority of white and English-speaking cannabis growers have also avoided compliance because of the\u00a0burdensome<\/a>\u00a0regulations, Vang says the divide is wider for immigrant farmers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a huge cultural clash,\u201d Vang told the North Coast Journal. \u201cThere\u2019s always a barrier between government and the people\u2026 We try to bridge that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n The North Coast Journal noted that there has been little effort to reach out to immigrant farmers in the supposedly more liberal Humboldt County.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen across the board with the Hmong, Bulgarian and Latino populations is there hasn\u2019t been a lot of outreach,\u201d said Terra Carver, executive director of the\u00a0Humboldt County Growers Alliance<\/a>. She admitted her organization hadn\u2019t\u00a0had any Hmong or Laotian-Americans \u201ccome through our doors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a no man\u2019s land,\u201d Vang said, invoking Trinity\u2019s lingering Wild West reputation \u2014 and fears of discriminatory enforcement. He said there is a widespread perception that \u201cpolice aren\u2019t out there to assist them, police are out there to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n This perception has been supported by years of tension with local police and city officials in Trinity\u2019s neighbor, Siskiyou County. Three lawsuits have been brought against the Siskiyou County\u2019s sheriff for discrimination against the Hmong, though three times the judge threw the case out, according to a\u00a0Los Angeles Times article<\/a>\u00a0on the situation in Siskiyou.<\/p>\n According to the paper, the American Civil Liberties Union had even intervened on behalf of the Hmong growers, citing acts of discrimination against the county\u2019s Hmong. For instance, the previous year the town council in Yreka passed a resolution declaring the municipality\u2019s Hmong farmers \u201cundesired\u201d and cut off sales of water to their plots.<\/p>\n The LA Times also made the discrimination the Hmong appear to face in Northern California is an especially bitter paradox because many of the Hmong came to the United States because their local village militias had cooperated with the CIA and Green Berets against communist insurgents in the\u00a0Laotian civil war<\/a>\u00a0of the 1960s. Consequently, the Hmong have faced persecution since the communists took over Laos in 1975.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think California should make its new cannabis regulations easier to navigate?<\/p>\n The post Helping Immigrant Farmers Access California\u2019s Legal Cannabis Industry<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Hmong growers \u2014 immigrants from the Southeast Asian nations of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China who speak Hmong-Mien languages \u2014 have established themselves in the Emerald Triangle\u2019s cannabis cultivation scene. Now, as California rolls out its regulatory system, many of the Hmong cannabis farmers are finding itContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,288,5658,100,1744,5659,3874,4278,81,319],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28995,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28994\/revisions\/28995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bridging the Cultural Gap in Trinity County<\/h4>\n
Policing California\u2019s Illicit Cannabis Market<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Helping Immigrant Farmers Access California\u2019s Legal Cannabis Industry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"