Repect is not given, but earned.

     Lately, my coach has been on the team's case about grades, respect and dedication. He wants to teach us not only how to wrestle, but also the skills and necessities we will need in the "real" world, outside of school. As I was reading The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell, I've noticed how things have changed throughout the years. This novel is filled  with the emotion, dedication and hearts of students of Wilson High School. What connected me to this book and took my attention was that all these kids where raised in Long Beach. My family, mainly my mom and grandparents started their lives over in Long Beach, a fresh start. We had to suffer the pain of hard work from bottom of the food chain to the top, low pay, and also reconnected with a new community. Though times now aren't much different from theirs, these kids also had it hard, they were not the high educated and financially blessed generation, but the children of welfare and food stamps. Thinking back, all of these kids were living in Long Beach's worse times of gangs, murder and discrimination. A simple difference in ethnicity or a simple wrong look, could get you killed.

     In the beginning of the novel, the students are blessed with a new teacher, Mrs. Gruwell. She had no idea what she was getting into, a white, educated, energized and beautiful woman coming into the ghettos of Long Beach crammed within a high school. The first few diary entries were all about how she will never last a month, some even said a week, but others talked about the "war" and drama going on outside of school. How all the pains of emotion, deaths, fighting and the students voracious need of revenge will soon subsume this little high school.

     Though I'm not finished with the book, I feel as if I'm already connected with each character. Their emotion is my emotion and their experiences flashes before my eyes. My favorite character, though I don't know the name yet, is definitely diary entry three. The student begins the entry right off with emotion and the hardships they're going through. I feel, because I'm a teenager myself, I can connect with this character, the mindset and the emotion. Even though i didn't experience what this character has experienced, he/she wants me to feel her pain and wants me to experience what they've experienced. Asking the question, "if you were in my position what would you do?"  Over and over.