Erin Gruwell, author of “The Freedom Writers Diary,” spoke Wednesday night in the Taggart Student Center ballroom at 7 p.m. The presentation was followed by a book signing and included the awarding of a freedom writers scholarship to a local Cache Valley teacher.
Gruwell started the presentation with a clip from the movie based off of her story, “The Freedom Writers.”
“They hated reading, they hated writing, they hated each other and the only thing that brought them together was their hatred of me,” Gruwell said.
Gruwell went on to talk about how everyday she would leave her privileged Newport Beach lifestyle and commute 45 minutes to the inner-city school she worked at in Long Beach, Calif.
She tried to gain the support of her co-workers but everyone had already given up on any chance these inner-city kids had.
Gruwell talked about a time when she tried to rally a co-worker into helping her get new books for her students that better applied to them.
Books about kids in a war. Books like “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
“This co-worker of mine proceeded to tell me that in a school district of 97,000 students, I have the lowest 150 the kids that weren’t supposed to make it,” Gruwell said.
With gang warfare and riots that happened every day, Gruwell described her students as having acknowledged the fact that, like many of their friends, they probably wouldn’t make it to their 18th birthdays.
“Most of my kids knew what it felt like at the age of 14 to have a bullseye on their chest,” Gruwell said.
“I realized my kids weren’t raising a glass to celebrate, they were pouring 40s over graves.”
Students Nikki Woodring and Makenzie Stevens, who attended the presentation found it hard to grasp that what Gruwell spoke of could happen in America.
“That happened, that happened in real life in our country no less,” Stevens said.
“I think that when you watch the film it’s just fiction but hearing her speak put it into perspective, that was real life,” Woodring said. “That really happened.”
Gruwell made it very clear through the entire presentation that though all these terrible things had happened to these kids, this story has a happy ending.
“It’s about that 'aha' moment when you know a kid gets it,” Gruwell said.
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