The Freedom Writers Diary (20th Anniversary Edition): How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

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The rivalry between black, Asian, and Latino gangs affect their everyday lives, constantly making them potential victims in a war where only external appearances and group loyalty matter. Ethnic and racial communities were also in direct rivalry with each other, as African-American, Asian, and Latino gangs engaged in a ruthless war for power and territory. Gruwell] always tries to corner you into accepting that there’s another side, when there really isn’t. This decision demonstrates her commitment to recognizing everyone’s humanity and dignity, regardless of their race or identity.

My children will learn how special it is to bond with another person who looks different but is actually just like them. I]t’s obvious that if you’re from a Latino gang you don’t get along with the Asian gang, and if you’re from the Asian gang, you don’t get along with the Latino gang. I immediately decided to throw out my meticulously planned lessons and make tolerance the core of my curriculum.When I have my own children someday, the custom I was taught as a child will be broken, because I know it's not right. The students at Wilson High School are immersed in the urban world of Long Beach, where racial tensions and a vicious gang war divide the population along ethnic and racial lines.

The majority of my teachers treat me as if I, and I alone, hold the answers to the mysterious creatures that African Americans are, like I’m the Rosetta Stone of black people. In this moment, she realizes that both sides of the conflict are affected by the same, senseless violence, and that protecting injustice in the name of her group identity will only tear more families apart.In early-1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina, another young girl, Zlata, is forced to hide in a basement to escape the brutal ethnic war that is tearing her country apart. After having seen her friend Paco kill another man, she is supposed to defend Paco and lie about his involvement in the murder, so as to defend her fellow Latino “people,” her “blood. I was probably more proud of being a “label” than of being a human being, that’s the way most of us were taught. They read about the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights activists—seven black and six white—who rode a bus across the American South in the early 1960s to protest the segregation of public buses.

They come to realize that peace and tolerance are much more inspiring messages than ethnic hatred and rivalry. As a consequence, at school and in their neighborhood, students learn to remain within the confines of their own identity group.When I was born, the doctor must have stamped “National Spokesperson for the Plight of Black People” on my forehead; a stamp visible only to my teachers.