Three men inside a car on Blackstone and Nees avenues in Fresno were hit with pepper spray as they joined a May 2021 rally denouncing Israeli aggression against Palestine. A pro-Palestine man accused the sprayer of stating that all Palestinians will be killed.
An LGBTQ couple walking in the Tower District in October 2022 encountered verbal slurs that evolved into an assault. They reported to police that “off-color comments” were directed at them.
A Black family in north Fresno woke up in July 2022 to discover a mannequin in their backyard with the head’s face painted black and a belt looped around its neck. In a Facebook post, the father said the family has dealt with “anything from ignorance, stupidity, or just straightforward racial comments and/or slurs.”
Discrimination, hate speech, rhetoric and bullying are not hate crimes, but they fall into the spectrum and could be the building blocks to hate crimes, according to experts who are focused on providing prevention and support services.
In the San Joaquín Valley, the region’s rich diversity could also be a liability, at a time when hate crimes are spiking across the state. Latinos account for the majority of residents in Fresno, Tulare, Madera, Merced, Kings, Kern, and Stanislaus counties. The Latino numbers also include Oaxacans and Salvadorans.
Armenians and Sikhs/Punjabis each number 40,000 in Fresno County alone. More than 120,000 Asians live in the county. The Fresno Unified School District reports more than 59 languages are spoken in its schools.
All that adds up to potential for racial friction that officials hope to keep in check at a time when politicians and others are constantly attacking Spanish-speaking migrants, LGBTQ+ people, Jews and other minority groups.
California sees a spike in hate crimes; Valley not immune
The San Joaquín Valley was not immune from a spike in hate crimes when state Attorney General Rob Bonta released the latest hate crime report for California.
Although the number of incidents don’t match those in Los Ángeles or the Bay Area, the 2022 figures showed an increase over the previous year. In an eight-county region stretching from Kern to San Joaquín counties, the 113 reported hate crime events represented an increase of 33% over the 85 cases reported in 2021.
Hate crime statistics do not tell the entire story, say those who track the data, because most incidents are not reported.
In California, hate crimes have increased by 145.7% in the last 10 years. From 2021 to 2022, hate crimes rose by 20.2%. Bonta and law enforcement officials said hate crimes against transgender people and Blacks drove the spike.
“The alarming increases in crimes committed against Black, LGBTQ+ and Jewish people for the second year in a row illustrates the need for our communities to join together unified against hate,” said Bonta.
Fresno County reported 23 events, 27 offenses, 26 victims and 29 suspects in the 2022 hate crime report. More than half of them were reported by Fresno police.
A hate crime is one that targets a person for his or her gender, race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, nationality or association with a person or group with one of these characteristics.
A hate crime event meets the criteria for a hate crime and has been documented by law enforcement. An offense is a criminal act that can range from murder, rape and robbery to simple assault, fondling and intimidation.
A hate incident can be name-calling, insults, a display of hate materials, or distribution of hate materials in public. Acts of discrimination, hate incidents and hate speech do not qualify as hate crimes.
Stop the Hate project
Vida en el Valle was among 46 ethnic media organizations that received grants from the California State Library in an effort to raise awareness of hate crimes.
The Stop the Hate Program is administered by the state Department of Social Services, which helps hate crime victims and works to prevent such incidents from happening in the first place.
“Crimes targeting victims because of their race or ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender or a disability have no place in the state of California,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom when the grants were announced in April 2022.
“These grants will increase awareness of the valuable services provided by the Stop the Hate Program, reduce stigma surrounding the reporting of hate incidents, and promote community healing.”
The grant program is part of the state’s Asian and Pacific Islander Equity Budget, a three-year, $166.5 million plan established in response to a sharp rise in hate crimes and incidents.
Vida en el Valle has teamed with The Fresno Bee and the Central Valley News Collaborative to follow up with stories on communities that have encountered hate crimes or hate incidents. Those stories will be published online in English and Spanish, and in print in either language.