The Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell [12]
Latinos and African Americans began to walk out. The police were everywhere. It was as if we were committing a crime, and it was necessary for them to stand outside school grounds. Some students were arrested while others left school and united as one in a nearby park with all of the other high schools.
I decided not to walk out. Instead, I was able to express my own feelings in a place where people heard my voice and my opinions were never judged. Ms. Gruwell’s class was where I could express my feelings about how this event was affecting me. Discussing the situation in class helped. She wrote “Prop 187” on the blackboard, and then we got to talk about how this proposition would affect certain nationalities.
If it passes, the government can take away health care benefits and any other public program, like school, to all illegal immigrants. I’m scared because it will personally affect my family, since my mom came here illegally. She came to America in search of the American dream. Immigrants, like my mom, came to this land looking for endless possibilities, but now those possibilities seem limited.
Someone in Ms. G’s class reminded us that “187” is the police code for murder. If this proposition passes, it may murder the opportunities for immigrants like me to succeed.
Diary 11
Dear Diary,
“yM enam si noraA.” To a 13-year-old toe-head, those words look completely normal, but what my eyes saw was “My name is Aaron.” I could always read backward and just assumed everyone else could, too. I even spelled backward. The word “cat,” in my perspective, would be spelled “tac,” and I could not tell the difference. My school papers were filled with red marks. Was I stupid or lazy? I felt stupid and alienated from everyone.
In the fifth grade, I had a teacher who always called me lazy in front of the whole class. She would always pick on me to read in front of the class. She knew I didn’t know how to read or spell very well and when I did read, I had to do it very slow. Everyone would laugh at me and call me stupid. I hated school. Ever since that year, I have never been able to read out loud because I am still afraid people will laugh at me and call me stupid.
I found out what my problem is. I’m dyslexic, which means I have a learning disorder. My brain sees things differently and words don’t look the way they do to others. My mom knew how upset I was about school and was able to find a school for dyslexic kids. Finally I had met kids like myself and I’d learned that I wasn’t so different after all. The school helped me so much because they taught me how to read and take notes on what I read. I learned how to figure out how to sound out big words and work out math problems, too. I was excited because I finally understood and was able to learn. I could read, but it was dyslexic-style.
The dyslexic school was only for one year, so I didn’t know what would happen when I got to high school. I knew I wasn’t stupid but kids might still laugh at me and I didn’t want to have to go through that again.
Kids didn’t seem to laugh as much if you were good at sports. Baseball made me feel good. I couldn’t recite Shakespeare, but I could hit a baseball thrown at 75 to 85 mph. I even got the chance to play as first baseman in the Little League World Series Championship. I couldn’t believe that the same kids who laughed at me and called me stupid were now cheering for me as I hit a grand slam in the Little League World Series. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my hero, Nolan Ryan, is dyslexic, too.
On my first day of high school, I met Ms. Gruwell. She’s my English and reading teacher. I’ve learned a lot from her. She doesn’t call me lazy or stupid. I have learned that reading can be fun. It is still difficult at times, but I don’t get that knot in my stomach when I read out loud.
Ms. Gruwell has also encouraged me in my one true love—sports. She told me that a lot of