Freedom writers free#
Inspired to write daily in a diary, each student is free to record anything: a drawing or a poem, feelings or events in the past, present or future. “Miepmania” rules as students become inspired by the words of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Who so should be a man, must be a nonconformist.”Ī casualty of war-whether at the hands of a Nazi soldier or a policeman in America-they begin to understand, is a universal tragedy. Taking the place of OGs are new heroes like Miep Gies, who courageously hid the Frank family from the Nazis during World War II, and Jim Zwerg, a white 1960s civil rights activist beaten to within an inch of his life for defying bus segregation in the Deep South. Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets become modern-day Latino and Asian gangs, and Anne Frank, victim of the Holocaust, gets adopted as one of the pupils’ own. They multiply.”)Ĭreatively building on what is familiar to her students, Erin makes relevant the alien-and foreboding-world of history and literature. While they have not been sensitized to large social and cultural events, they are walking encyclopedias about their own disenfranchised universe. With justifiable outrage, Erin cites the role similar caricatures of Jews played in the Holocaust.Īlthough ignorant about the European atrocity, Erin’s students have all lost friends in the “undeclared” wars, rooted in poverty, frustration and alienation, in their neighborhoods. After intercepting a racialist drawing depicting a black student with exaggerated features, she is provoked beyond control. The daughter of a civil rights activist, who idealistically wants to teach at an integrated institution, Erin is shocked at the level of self-segregation among her students and the hostility between the different ethnic groups.
Freedom writers code#
Asians killing Latinos.”) For most, the start of a new day “is the continuation of a nightmare.” While others fear the 1994 California ballot initiative, Proposition 187-ironically, the police code for a murder-because “if this proposition passes, it may murder the opportunities for immigrants like me to succeed.” (Designed to deny illegal immigrants social services, health care and public education, it was passed then overturned by a federal court.) hasn’t yet realized that schools are just like the city and the city is just like prison.Latinos killing Asians. Options offered by parole and probation officers are school or juvenile hall.ĭemurely attired, Erin becomes the subject of bets among the students on her longevity as the guardian of their classroom, which is viewed as nothing more that a holding pen. They sink or swim in an “undeclared war” in which contending gangs vie for the status of “Original Gangsters (OGs)” in the ’hood.
Freedom writers full#
The revolt spilled over into Long Beach, located in Los Angeles County.Įrin finds herself “stuck in a classroom full of troubled kids who are bused in from bad neighborhoods.” Room 203 is a volatile mix of African American, Latino, Asian and white freshmen, who are classified by the school’s callous administration as “unteachable.” Homelessness, drug abuse, histories of criminal activity, incarcerated family members and gang involvements are but a few of the ills crushing the students. One of the worst in US history, the upheaval produced more casualties-54 dead and 2,000 injured-than any civil unrest since the Civil War.
Novice teacher, 23-year-old Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank), steps into Room 203 at the Long Beach, California, secondary school barely two years after the 1992 Los Angeles riots during which minority neighborhoods exploded following the acquittal of the police who had brutally beat Rodney King. Many such lives fill one of the school’s freshman home rooms in Richard LaGravenese’s new film, Freedom Writers. “At 16, I’ve probably witnessed more dead bodies than a mortician,” says a Woodrow Wilson High School student, before matter-of-factly describing a life in which gang and domestic violence are everyday occurrences.
Freedom Writers written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, based on the book, The Freedom Writers Diary, by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell