The Freedom Writers Diary (12 page)

But I also want to thank you for doing what you are doing today for my country, for children and young people who truly need people like yourselves, who will unselfishly and in a 100% humane way do something for them. Thank you for not forgetting them, for shadowing the feeling of being abandoned the rest of the world gives them. You must know that they will appreciate it greatly, they will appreciate anything you give them, because it is not only the question of the amount, but the gesture brings a lot as well. Offering a helping hand is more than great.

So, not to make this extremely long, as I could, I will just wish you the best of luck for today and the best of fun as well. Enjoy yourselves. Your friends will hopefully know a bit more about Bosnia thanks to you. Go Bosnia Beauties (ha-ha) and all the others.

Don’t forget—the strength is in you. You have the power. And you also have the choice where to direct that power to. Just don’t forget that.

Once more, thank you for everything—in my name and in the name of all those from a little country of Bosnia who need your help. And special thanks to your wonderful, amazing teacher (let me hear some ovations!)…

I love you and miss you all very much.

All my friendship…

    C-YA soon

       With love,

          Zlata

P.S. Warmest and sincere regard to everyone in sunny L.A. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Diary 52

Dear Diary,

My life is going downhill, and so quickly I’m not sure if I can hold it up anymore. Let’s start from the beginning. The other day my sister and I were looking through some pictures we found in our parents’ room. We found this picture of an old man and my mom together at a hotel. They were sitting in their bathing suits together, arms around each other. The crazy part is my parents are still married. It didn’t make sense to either of us. I think it hit me a little harder than it did my sister. Though I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or just start yelling. This was my family my mom was screwing with. We took the pictures to my mom and asked her about the man. She got really defensive and told us to stay out of her room, that we had no right going through her stuff and that he was just a friend. Yeah, right, I didn’t believe if for a minute. She wouldn’t have been so upset if this guy were just a friend. When my mom went out of town last week with her “friend from work,” she was really with this man! That means…she is cheating on my dad! Neither of us can say anything to our dad, so we’ve decided to keep our mouths closed. He is going to find out soon enough. My family is starting to crumble a bit, it isn’t falling apart yet, but I know it will soon.

I wanted to rely on Ms. G’s class to be my surrogate family, but I’m slowly finding out that it might not be a good idea because we may not be a family next year. Although Ms. G wants to teach us next year, as juniors, the other English teachers don’t want to let her. They argue that a teacher who has only been teaching here for a couple of years doesn’t have the right to pick her students and teach them for four years. There was a handful of teachers complaining and now we are in jeopardy of not being a class next year.

This can’t be happening to me. Now both of my families are falling apart. I’m not going to have anyone left because we are being split into different classes. I can’t handle it; I can’t lose both my families! This is all I have left. To think it’s only because the other teachers are jealous. We are getting all the attention now, newspapers are writing articles about us. Some teachers haven’t done anything new in years, and now that we are trying something new, they’re becoming jealous. They are trying to hold us down, split us up, and keep us from making a difference. It’s not going to work!

Ms. G did what she does best; she talked to anyone who would listen to her about our accomplishments until we had made some headway. They were talking about letting us have our own class. Everyone is worried. I’ve caught a couple kids crying about it, actually someone probably caught me more then once. All I can think about is us not being together. What would we do? Who would we turn to? As if high school isn’t hard enough, this would make it ten times harder. Right now, I have my comfort zone, I have a place where everyone accepts me and I accept everyone, and I can’t be without this for the next two years.

It’s been a hard time for everyone. We have to keep working in class, although we don’t know if we are going to be together next year or not. These teachers can’t break our chain, we are linked, not by our hands, but by our hearts and we will always be together. I’m scared, very scared. I hope everything works out.

Diary 53

Dear Diary,

School’s almost over, and I just found out that we get to have Ms. Gruwell next year! It’s great news for all of us. She fought hard to keep us together! I’ve been lucky to have her for two years. My mom says, “I’ve hit the lottery in education.” She’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. She truly cares about us and never judges us based on appearances. Now I get to be in her class my junior year!

I have a lot of friends who are in honors English and they’ve become quite interested in what my class has been doing lately! There have been questions about our field trips and the dinners we attended. After all the years my friends who had made me feel stupid, all are now interested in my class. After all, they used to call Ms. Gruwell’s class the “Ghetto Class” because of all the minorities. They have always made me feel like a dumb white boy because I’m not in their honors classes. Well, it looks like they’re the losers because they don’t know how great this class really is and how many friends I have made because of it. We have had many guest speakers and travel to museums and social functions. I view things much differently than my friends do because of my new experiences, but hey, they’re still my friends.

I told my friends that there was going to be room for a couple of more students in Ms. Gruwell’s class. I found out they had all signed a waiting list to get into her class the very next day! If my friends are accepted, I hope they will treat Ms. Gruwell and the other students with respect. If not, I’ll have to regulate because as far as I’m concerned, they’re the ones on probation in my “Ghetto Class”!

The Freedom Writers have a dream! On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., following a candlelight vigil honoring family and friends lost to violence.

Our fearless leader, Ms. G.

U.S. Secretary of Education Riley, speaking to us when we presented our manuscript in Washington, D.C.

Miep Gies, the courageous woman who sheltered Anne Frank and her family, signs copies of her book,
Anne Frank Remembered,
and Anne’s book,
The Diary of a Young Girl
.

With Miep.