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By Root 995 0

was published, it felt as if the entire world had read it and then decided to call Room 203. We’ve had to assign a student to act as receptionist in each class period. We’ve been receiving so much mail from people all across the country, and we have no idea what to do with it all; the donations for our college fund are amazing and quite touching. People have thanked us for the work we have done in educating others and ourselves. Even people in prison wrote to us, telling us that they hope our future is successful, because they were doubtful about their own. Children wrote to us saying they look up to us and adults encouraged us to keep going. I never knew that one article could get such a response. A journalist from the Associated Press called us and wants to do another story. I wonder what the response to that article will be.

Diary 109

Dear Diary,

I’ve received lots of letters from people in prison before. In fact, all through my childhood I got letters once a week from my dad when he was doing time. I didn’t get emotional about them; the letters were just a reminder that my father was still in prison. So it never crossed my mind that a letter from a complete stranger would make me cry.

My mom has always told me that the past always comes back to haunt you. Well, she’s right. My past always seems to find me. Only this time it hit me where it hurts the most, my family. I received a letter from a complete stranger, a prisoner from West Virginia who read an article in the newspaper about the Freedom Writers, and who was able to remind me of the values and the rules with which I was raised. He reminded me of the barrier I had to break to be where I am today.

With his letter I was reminded of all the years my father spent in prison. Leonard is only eighteen years old and he is facing life in prison for a crime that he did not commit. The worst part is that he has a little girl that’s eight months old. She is going to grow up without a father just like I did. Leonard is innocent, but because of the way he was raised, he is going to stay in prison for the rest of his life. He, like me, was brought up to believe that you don’t rat on your homeboys. That’s why my father spent so many years in prison—he refused to turn in his friend—and I so many years without a father.

Maybe Leonard’s daughter will develop a phobia of birds being locked up in cages. Every time she sees them, she’ll be reminded of her father in the cage that is his jail cell. The same image I used to have when I was a little girl. Since he reminds me of my dad, I’m going to write back to him and encourage him to do the right thing. He must tell the Judge he is innocent so he can be a father for his daughter.

In his letter to me, he quoted Anne Frank by saying that he, too, felt “like a bird in a cage and sometimes just wanted to fly away.” That is the power of the written word. Leonard didn’t know who Anne Frank was but he quoted her, because I had quoted her in the newspaper. The power of the media to reach people in every corner of the world is amazing.

Diary 110

Dear Diary,

I used to think my father was a coward because he left my mom when she was pregnant. Even though my father and mother were never married, I assumed he left my mom because he didn’t have a job at the time and he couldn’t afford to take care of me. Sometimes I thought he was a bad person who did drugs, drank all the time, and stayed home doing nothing. Most of the people who knew my father put these thoughts in my head.

My father has missed so much of my life, especially the last few years while I’ve been a Freedom Writer. He missed my trip to Washington, D.C., to meet the Secretary of Education, and I think the biggest thing my father will miss is my graduation in June.

When Ms. G made us read the book Jesse by Gary Soto, about a teenager who had a father but lived with his stepfather, it made me think about my real father and what it would’ve been like to have him around. After we finished the book, Ms. G made us do an assignment dealing with other cultures where we had