The Freedom Writers Diary

For those of you who have not seen the movie, i would very strongly recommend seeing it. It is a fantastic film based on a true story of how a young caucasian female teacher made a great impact on a class of african americans, latinos, cambodians, asians, etc; most of whom were involved in gangs, didn't know how to read, hadn't heard of the holocaust, and/or had no intention of ever graduating high school. I chose the actual diary as my second novel and realized i never posted a blog about it. It is a very heart-breaking and touching book and film about how naaive alot of Americans are about their nation. For instance, only after seeing the movie The Solist (Jamie Foxx), i learned that there were not only thousands but millions of homeless people living just in California. (I believe that was just in the San Francisco area but don't quote me) Likewise, until seeing this film i was not aware of how horrible many areas of our country are over-ridden with violence, hatred, and racism. Take Long Beach, California for example (which is where this story takes place) At Wilson High School, there were several different minorities thrown in with a what used to be majority caucasian school. Each minority acted as a unit, hated every other one, and would die for their own just to kill another one. Using the books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo, Erin Gruwell (the teacher) relates the students to eachother, while educating them and bringing them together. Gruwell hands out journals for every student to fill out every day and in the end compiles them into The Freedom Writers Diary. "We decided that we were going to tell all the other teenagers that they were not alone."- Freedom Writer