California is home to the largest population of Hmong in the United States, with nearly 100,000, and most initially settled in the Central Valley. Over the last decade, many have moved north, and others from around the country are migrating to this part of California to take advantage of the growing marijuana trade.

They are a small slice of what has become a huge industry across the state. In Trinity County, they are reinvigorating a struggling, rural area that was losing population.

The legalization of recreational marijuana in November set off a so-called green rush in California, which has been a center for cannabis-growing for decades. Like the gold miners who scoured the same Northern California hills 150 years ago, marijuana entrepreneurs have come hoping to gain great fortunes.

The Hmong, a hill tribe that fought alongside the Central Intelligence Agency in a covert war against Communist forces in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s, were known for their skills as opium farmers. The trade continues to help finance insurgencies in a part of Southeast Asia known as the Golden Triangle. It is not lost on some Hmong here that they now live in a part of California called the Emerald Triangle, named for the thriving trade in marijuana.