Hate crimes are mounting in rural California, where many ethnic minorities are too distrustful of the government to report them.
In response to this rise, California launched CA vs Hate, a reporting and resource hotline for those facing hate to find support in the form they want.
Since the initiative’s May 2023 launch, “For the first time in California history, we’ve had a statewide hotline to help people targeted for hate report it and identify options for next steps,” said Kevin Kish, director of the state Civil Rights Department, at a Friday, January 17 Ethnic Media Services briefing on the hotline and hate in rural California.
“This is not just a hotline where people tell the government what happened to them. It’s a tool to connect people who experience hate with culturally competent resources they need, in the communities where they live.”
This includes legal services; law enforcement referrals; counseling and mental health resources; financial aid; and connections to community organizations like health clinics or social service agencies.
Responding to hate
State data shows that race-, ethnicity- and national origin-motivated hate crimes in California rose from 875 in 2020 to 1,017 in 2023 — a 16.23% increase.
A 51.6% majority of all reported hate crimes overall were motivated by race, ethnicity and national origin; other motivations include sexual orientation (20.6%), religion (20%), gender (4.2%) and disability (0.9%).
A federal Department of Justice study conducted between 2011 and 2015 shows that 54% of hate crimes nationwide are not reported to police.
“The communities who most face hate are often most underrepresented because they’re afraid of reporting to law enforcement,” said Kish. “Some have reported and nothing happens, so they don’t see the point. Many don’t know if what happened to them is legally a crime that they should report. For immigrant communities in particular, there may be language barriers and fear related to contacting the government. People in indigenous communities may be grappling with jurisdictional issues between tribal and local, state and federal authorities.”
“This hotline was designed to overcome these barriers,” he added. “People aren’t necessarily looking for this information until it happens to them, and when it does, they need to access it wherever they are.”
Californians can report online at cavshate.org, or talk to a civil rights agent by phone at (833) 866-4281 or 833-8-NO-HATE, Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Free support is available in 200 languages and anonymous reporting is available.
In the hotline’s first year, it received over 1,000 hate reports from nearly 80% of the state’s counties, and roughly two-thirds of people who reported hate agreed to follow up for resources and support referral.
However, all counties which reported no or very few hate crimes were rural counties like Del Norte, Sutter and Mariposa.
Hate in rural California
In rural El Dorado county northeast of Sacramento, where 74% of the population is non-Hispanic White and 2% is Native American, “There’s an epidemic of hate. It’s very conservative here,” said Kim Stoll, communications director for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians.
“For instance, we were having tags made for our cars in the parking lot, but many tribal members said ‘No, we’re not going to do that. If we identify ourselves as tribal members, there’ll be a problem,’” said Stoll. “It was interesting to see that, knowing how long they’ve been here on the reservation … yet how isolated they remain.”
Gaonou Vang, communications and narrative manager at Hmong Innovating Politics in Sacramento, attested to similar isolation in the Hmong community, of which are an estimated 95,000 to 107,458 in California and 368,609 in the U.S.
“There’s not enough trust that has been built with our communities … ever since the first generation of Hmong refugees from the Vietnam War and the Secret War in Laos in the ’60s,” she explained.
“Many Hmong are naturalized citizens due to former refugee statuses, or being born in America, but we have a rising demographic of green card holders in the last decade, and a rough estimate of 4,500 of these folks have orders against them to be deported as a result of being convicted in a crime, whether it be small or large … even after they serve their time and have been released,” Vang continued.
With rising ICE raids of Southeast Asian communities; repatriation agreements with Cambodia and Vietnam; and the incoming Trump administration having issued final orders for removal of Hmong to Laos its last time around in 2020, “concern is rising while trust in the government falls, so there’s a lot of underreporting overall,” she said.
In response, “It’s been very important for us to empower our youth as community leaders, because we see this domino effect: When we educate them, they educate their families, and it trickles into the community,” Vang added. “With CA vs Hate, a lot of the work we’ve been doing is showing youth how to overcome that distrust and report this hate that’s happening in our communities.”
“Hate is everywhere. What makes it stand out here is that the population has made a major shift,” said Marlene Thomas, executive director of the Imperial Valley Social Justice Committee, a nonprofit in Imperial County, one of the two California counties bordering Mexico.
“When I was growing up, this was primarily a white community, and now it’s 90% Hispanic,” she explained. “But the difference is, there’s been an assimilation of the older Hispanic community, while newer immigrants just trying to survive are being discriminated against, really by their own people.”
In November 2023, six months after the launch of CA vs Hate, “We had a Stop the Hate conference, and the local chief of police and the sheriff were there and went through the reporting process that you have to do. But they had only two complaints,” Thomas continued. “I know that there had to have been more than that, but there wasn’t … Why this fear, this lack of awareness of what people can do?”
“Our committee initially came together in 2022, in response to police harassment in our county, particularly with the African American community. Now, we have over 7078 volunteers,” she said. “We work closely with the ACLU and give workshops about your rights and what to do when stopped by the police or Border Patrol.”
Thanks to this hotline, “One of the first things we can do is bring this information about reporting hate to our schools and community institutions,” Thomas added. “But it’s not enough … When you’re facing hate, at heart, it’s about keeping hope alive.”
