By Polly M. (she/her)
Pasadena High School ‘25
On January 22nd, 2025, I shared this story with over 1,500 staff, faculty, and supporting community members from across PUSD. This “back-to-school” event took place just two weeks after the Eaton Fire, in which my family and I as well as thousands of other Altadena families lost our homes. As our district planned to reopen the following week, two students from the PUSD Student Think Tank and Assembly were honored with the invitation to share with our teachers and administrators what we felt they could do to support us after the fire. I was one of the students selected to speak.
I wrote this speech for my incredible teachers and administrators at Pasadena High School as an invitation to be vulnerable. It was clear to me that we needed to cry, lean on one another, and feel this loss together. At the time, I couldn’t imagine what the next two years would hold for families like mine and Altadena at large, but I was certain that we had to start with compassion. Nearly two years later, I am touched that my experience after the Eaton Fire is included alongside those of my good friends and brilliant peers in the first publication of The Learning Curve anthology.
Paulina’s speech was first published in PEF’s blog on February 25, 2025, a month after she delivered it and just six weeks after the Eaton Fire burned down her home and caused deep destruction in Altadena. Read it here and watch the video of her delivering the speech below.
Polly M. (she/her) is an undergraduate studying Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. An Altadena resident of 12 years, Polly spends much of her time thinking about connecting the organisms that surround her–the people, birds, buckwheat, and all others in the web of life that our San Gabriel mountains sustain. Polly is pursuing a career in conservation biology and forest ecology, one which will allow her to promote coexistence between human and non-human communities across landscapes like Altadena. Above all, she is proud to call Altadena her home.
