Election Day is November 3rd — make your plan to vote

I'm honored you're here.

This is my story of how I got from translating for my parents to running for Pittsburg City Council.

Pauline Johnson as a young girl in double denim, grinning with her hands on her knees, in a photo date-stamped May 2000

The translator

My name is Pauline Johnson. I'm the eldest daughter of immigrants, who moved from Korea to Argentina and then finally to Southern California. My parents are two of the most intelligent and hardworking people I know. In fact, my dad graduated from the Harvard of Argentina. But as they lived here, they didn't know English well.

So growing up, I became my parents' dedicated mouthpiece and translator. As I got older and the translations got more complex, I grew more aware of the challenges they faced and the services closed off to them, simply because they couldn't speak English.

I came to see that in the United States, when you don't know the language, it's easy to be treated like nobody. Sometimes my parents didn't bother reaching for services at all, worn down by the effort of trying to be seen as worth helping.

Pauline Johnson as a toddler in a floral dress, with her father's hands resting on her shoulders

What shaped me

My family history, the practice I developed translating for my parents, and my faith in Jesus, who constantly reached toward the marginalized, shaped how I see people others overlook, and inspires my desire to make a difference in their lives. I studied political science, hoping to do exactly that, but, at the time, the impact I wanted to make felt limited in that field. So I became a software engineer instead, someone who builds things and makes people's lives better.

Pauline Johnson smiling as a baby reaches for flowers by the fountain in Pittsburg

How I got here

Love took me somewhere I never expected: the city of Pittsburg! This man, who wasn't yet my boyfriend, made his way to my heart through footage of himself twirling a baton as drum major of the Pittsburg High School Marching Show Band. Not the twirling. The confidence. Yes, it's on YouTube.

And all his raves about “P World” turned out to be true. People here come from different backgrounds, and it's still the most tight-knit, generous place I've lived. They adopted me as their own long before I had any claim on it.

For years, I kept coming back, visiting Pittsburg again and again as our relationship grew. Now, after marriage, I've finally joined him here for good, and we're raising our baby here, starting the fourth generation of our Pittsburg family.

The data center

One afternoon, I learned about it the way so many in our community do, not through an official notice, but through a TikTok video and a petition. A hyperscale data center was coming to Pittsburg, one that could reshape the community's future. I couldn't just scroll past it.

So I started talking to neighbors. Those conversations grew into a coalition, and all we asked the council for was a pause, just to make sure this was something our community wanted. We were brushed off. The more I looked into how things get decided at City Hall, the more I saw it wasn't just this one project. People raise concerns and watch them disappear into the process, unseen.

A baby in denim overalls reaching toward red flowers as Pauline Johnson points out a bloom, at the fountain planter.

Why I'm running

I learned early what it costs to go unseen. I saw our community being left behind the same way I saw my family being left behind.

That is not right — not by any standard I believe in. It's not the future I want for my family, and it's not the future Pittsburg has to be. So I stopped waiting for someone else to change it.

I'm running for city council so that we're never invisible in the decisions that shape this city.

This is a campaign of neighbors.

Add your name and I'll keep you posted on what's coming up at City Hall — and where we could use you.