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INSTAGRAM Asian Americans celebrated after Siskiyou County rescinded its water ordinances. |
Two years after Siskiyou County enacted a series of targeted ordinances that deprived thousands of Hmong American, Chinese American, and other Asian American residents of basic water for survival, hygiene, and wildfire defense, community members secured an important milestone this week in their fight to build a home, live safely, and raise their families without fear of bigotry and racist persecution by local officials.
As of August 1, 2023, Siskiyou County has repealed two of its water ordinances that created a humanitarian crisis for Asian American residents, degraded their health, resulted in the loss of livestock and gardens, left people unable to fend off wildfires, and forced many to leave their homes.
The county also amended a third water ordinance to establish due process protections and limit violation fines that discouraged people from providing water.
All Siskiyou County residents, including those in Shasta Vista, Dorris, and Macdoel, can now lawfully bring water to their homes via trucks and purchase water for basic needs from neighboring large well owners.
“Today, we celebrate an important victory affirming our human right to water and our rights to live without oppressive fear and trauma, simply because of where we were born or what we look like.” said ”Siskiyou County resident Russell Mathis.
Lawsuits vs. SIskiyou
These measures came after a settlement in Lo v. Siskiyou County, led by 11 Siskiyou County residents who were denied basic water needs as part of the county’s well-documented campaign of harassment, discrimination, and racial profiling against Asian American community members.
A federal court ordered the county to stop enforcement of two water ordinances to prevent the “dehydration and de facto expulsion of a disfavored minority” in 2021. In 2022, the federal judge ruled against the county’s attempts to end this preliminary injunction, noting “the passage of time has erased neither the concerning language County officials used to describe their purposes nor the racial animosity Hmong people in Shasta Vista have faced.”
The Lo plaintiffs were represented by the law offices of Allison B. Margolin, PLC and Frank S. Moore, APC. The Asian Law Caucus and the ACLU of Northern California filed briefs in support of the Lo plaintiffs’ lawsuit, showing that Siskiyou County’s discriminatory practices extended beyond water, including racial profiling in traffic stops and the use of punitive liens.
In August 2022, Asian American community members filed a major class action lawsuit against Siskiyou County officials and the Siskiyou Sheriff’s Department for their sweeping racial persecution campaign. In this case, Chang v. Siskiyou County, community members and their attorneys at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus, and Covington & Burling LLP detailed how county officials restrict people’s right to water and execute unlawful traffic stops, search and seizure practices, and property liens in a blatant effort to isolate residents of Asian descent and drive them out of the region.
Just as community members led a settlement in Lo v. Siskiyou County to restore their right to water, community members leading the Chang v. Siskiyou County class action lawsuit are currently in settlement negotiations to resolve claims of racial discrimination.
“As the Asian American community in Siskiyou has grown, including more parents enrolling their kids in school, grandparents retiring to more rural areas that remind them of Laos, and families trying to be closer together, Siskiyou County and the Sheriff’s Department have gone to troubling lengths to push out the Asian American community, and community members are taking action to create a safe, inclusive place to live,” said John Do, senior staff attorney for the Racial & Economic Justice Program at the ACLU of Northern California.
The discriminatory practices came through acts of intimidation including unlawful traffic stops and illegal search and seizure practices.
In a county where US Census figures showed that Asian and Pacific Islanders adults made up only about 2.4% of the adult population, more than 28% of traffic stops conducted by sheriff’s deputies last year involved Asian American drivers, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs' lawyers said their investigation found that sheriff’s deputies stopped drivers of Asian descent at a rate of roughly 12 times greater than their proportion of the driving-age population, with Asian American drivers about 17 times more likely to be pulled over than a white individual.
The northern California county in the shadow of Mt. Shasta is home to fewer than 45,000 people, of whom 85% are white and 1.6% are Asian American, according to the 2020 Census. Many Asian American residents in Siskiyou County are Hmong and came to the US as refugees after fighting alongside the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.
These measures came after a settlement in Lo v. Siskiyou County, led by 11 Siskiyou County residents who were denied basic water needs as part of the county’s well-documented campaign of harassment, discrimination, and racial profiling against Asian American community members.
A federal court ordered the county to stop enforcement of two water ordinances to prevent the “dehydration and de facto expulsion of a disfavored minority” in 2021. In 2022, the federal judge ruled against the county’s attempts to end this preliminary injunction, noting “the passage of time has erased neither the concerning language County officials used to describe their purposes nor the racial animosity Hmong people in Shasta Vista have faced.”
The Lo plaintiffs were represented by the law offices of Allison B. Margolin, PLC and Frank S. Moore, APC. The Asian Law Caucus and the ACLU of Northern California filed briefs in support of the Lo plaintiffs’ lawsuit, showing that Siskiyou County’s discriminatory practices extended beyond water, including racial profiling in traffic stops and the use of punitive liens.
In August 2022, Asian American community members filed a major class action lawsuit against Siskiyou County officials and the Siskiyou Sheriff’s Department for their sweeping racial persecution campaign. In this case, Chang v. Siskiyou County, community members and their attorneys at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus, and Covington & Burling LLP detailed how county officials restrict people’s right to water and execute unlawful traffic stops, search and seizure practices, and property liens in a blatant effort to isolate residents of Asian descent and drive them out of the region.
Just as community members led a settlement in Lo v. Siskiyou County to restore their right to water, community members leading the Chang v. Siskiyou County class action lawsuit are currently in settlement negotiations to resolve claims of racial discrimination.
“As the Asian American community in Siskiyou has grown, including more parents enrolling their kids in school, grandparents retiring to more rural areas that remind them of Laos, and families trying to be closer together, Siskiyou County and the Sheriff’s Department have gone to troubling lengths to push out the Asian American community, and community members are taking action to create a safe, inclusive place to live,” said John Do, senior staff attorney for the Racial & Economic Justice Program at the ACLU of Northern California.
The discriminatory practices came through acts of intimidation including unlawful traffic stops and illegal search and seizure practices.
In a county where US Census figures showed that Asian and Pacific Islanders adults made up only about 2.4% of the adult population, more than 28% of traffic stops conducted by sheriff’s deputies last year involved Asian American drivers, according to the complaint.
The plaintiffs' lawyers said their investigation found that sheriff’s deputies stopped drivers of Asian descent at a rate of roughly 12 times greater than their proportion of the driving-age population, with Asian American drivers about 17 times more likely to be pulled over than a white individual.
The northern California county in the shadow of Mt. Shasta is home to fewer than 45,000 people, of whom 85% are white and 1.6% are Asian American, according to the 2020 Census. Many Asian American residents in Siskiyou County are Hmong and came to the US as refugees after fighting alongside the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.
Marijuana growing
The county claimed the ordinances were necessary and primarily aimed at illegal marijuana agriculture. Growing cannabis has been legal in California since 2018, but Siskiyou’s regulations have made it nearly impossible to grow legally, according to Prism. The county does not classify marijuana-growing as an agricultural therefore criminalizing growing the plant.
The county claimed the ordinances were necessary and primarily aimed at illegal marijuana agriculture. Growing cannabis has been legal in California since 2018, but Siskiyou’s regulations have made it nearly impossible to grow legally, according to Prism. The county does not classify marijuana-growing as an agricultural therefore criminalizing growing the plant.
However, many Hmong and Chinese community members, who are part of the county’s farming population, said the measures were largely enforced in Asian American areas, the lawsuits allege.
“If the sheriff was really concerned about cannabis, there would be all kinds of enforcement going on throughout the county, and there’s very little in the non-Hmong areas,” said Glenn Katon, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus in an interview with Prism.
“If the sheriff was really concerned about cannabis, there would be all kinds of enforcement going on throughout the county, and there’s very little in the non-Hmong areas,” said Glenn Katon, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus in an interview with Prism.
White people have grown cannabis in Siskiyou since at least the late ‘60s without much incident, according to Margiana Petersen-Rockney, who co-published ethnographic research on cannabis farmers in the county.
In the mid-2010s, Hmong Americans started to arrive. The cheap parcels of land and mountainous landscape drew many Hmong elders from the Hmong communities in Minnesota and Fresno, Calif. The mountains and rural setting reminded them of Laos and their agricultural roots.
The tension grew between the county and its newest residents when four officers from different agencies, including the sheriff's department, fired 60 shots and killed Soobleej Kaub Hawj, a local farmer, who was attempting to bring water to the area. Authorities say he brandished a gun.
“The county kept insisting the case was about cannabis,” the ACLU's Do told Prism. “(The county’s officials) spoke as if everyone was part of a violent drug cartel essentially, and I think that language is indicative of how they’ve been treated.”
Siskiyou County’s water ordinances is the latest example of a long history of racist water policies used to target Black, Latino, and other communities of color and uphold segregation in California, particularly in unincorporated communities in the San Joaquin Valley, and in other states across the country.
“Siskiyou County’s bigoted practices draw from a long history of US policies treating people of Asian descent as less than full Americans who ‘don’t belong’ in our country, picking and choosing who has the freedom to build better lives and live safely,” said Glenn Katon, litigation director for the Asian Law Caucus.
After the ordinances were repealed last week, Siskiyou resident Matis said: “My neighbors and I have been forced to make impossible choices between bathing every week and providing water to our pets, livestock, and gardens. County officials said they wanted to ‘choke’ us out, and these water ordinances were one tool in a shameful playbook to push so many of us out of the neighborhoods we call home.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me at Threads.net/eduardodiok, @DioknoEd on Twitter or at the blog Views From the Edge.
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