The Holocaust
The concerted plans for the extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, disabled and others whom the Nazis deemed inferior to themselves is really the overarching symbol for the very existence of the Freedom Writers. It was the shocking revelation to Erin Gruwell about the hideously comprehensive ignorance of humanity’s lowest point of the 20th century that became the engine driving her impressive agenda.
Room 203
Diary 24 entry ends with these words from the student: “Ms. Gruwell in Room 203. I walk in the room and I feel as though all the problems in my life are not important anymore. I am home.” Room 203 becomes in some ways a literal but in a much broader sense a symbolic haven for not just the Freedom Writers, but any student who happens to wander into it. As Gruwell put it in her own diary entry, for more than a few students room 203 represents refuge from the surrounding mayhem.
Prop 187
Proposition 187 was another one in the seemingly never-ending litany of legislation that pops up with routinely somewhere in America every twenty years or so for the express purpose of making life more difficult for immigrants. Its passage and brief implementation before being ruled unconstitutional was designed to block access to non-emergency health care and public education for any immigrant in California lacking proper documentation. The number of the ballot initiative proved unfortunate for supporters because as police code for murder, “187” quickly caught on a symbol of its genuine unwritten purpose: to kill any hopes for a future in America that immigrants lacking official documentation might entertain.
Anne Frank
For their teacher, the Holocaust in all its unimaginatively inexplicable horror combined with the seeming impossibility teens attending high school a mere fifty years after it occurred becomes the primary symbol for wanting to teach lessons about tolerance as part of her curriculum. For a great many of the students, Anne Frank is the symbolic figure of that lesson being learned, the gap in knowledge being filled and that ignorance being overcome. The transformation of Anne Frank from a complete unknown to a personal hero for so many of the students begins with the bond of sharing teenagerhood. Gradually, the students begin to comprehend that this bond extends beyond being the same age to sharing the same world in which intolerance is expressed through violence every day for absolutely no reason that makes any sense.
The Old Man on the Beach
A short fable precedes the long list of names mentioned in the Acknowledgements section at the back of the book. It is a story told by primary financial benefactor of the Freedom Writers, John Tu and it is about a younger man who comes across an older man a beach picking up starfish which had been washed ashore one by and one and tossing them back in the ocean. The old man explains that if they are left on the beach, they will die, but if they can get back into he water, they can go on living. The young man is dumbfounded, asserting the obvious the fact that there is no way possible one single man can get what must be millions of starfish washed ashore back into the water. “You can’t save them all. Don’t you know you’ll never make a difference?” he asks. The man promptly reaches down, picks up a starfish and throws it back into the water: “I’ll make a difference to this one,” he says with no further explanation of the symbolic significance needed.
