🖤 We Will Never Be Silent 🖤

These are heavy days. At home, in this country and across the world. We are watching state power used against us, families torn apart, and unjustifiable violence terrorizing our communities and our people.

Beautiful Altadena has never been apolitical. In June 2025, when I shared a story that said “Fuck ICE,” some accused me of not being an “impartial leader” and said I was encouraging violence. I was clear then, and I’ll say it again now: Speaking up against oppression is not violence. Silence is complicity.

This Federal intimidation has been at our front door, even at active rebuilding job sites, for months. Today’s announcement about an executive order from this administration claiming to “cut red tape” for rebuilding after the Eaton and Palisades Fires is just another tactic in their playbook. Executive orders do not override local or state authority, and this reads like more intimidation and narrative control, especially when it conveniently pulls the focus away from the very real threat of ICE activity in our communities. It's more hot air from the blowhard authoritarian in chief.

We choose instead to center what has always sustained Altadena. Community, truth, creativity, and resistance. The images shared here — from Austin Scott’s artwork to the “Fuck ICE” cookies at Altadena Cookie Co. — are reminders that beauty and resistance go hand in hand in here. Always have, and always will.

Oh, and FUCK ICE.

✊🏽 We see what’s happening.

✊🏽 We know what’s at stake.

✊🏽 We will never be silent.