Maria Reyes

When Maria Reyes was 11 years old she followed her father and grandfather into the family business - gangs in Southern California. Her early career path was predictable: In and out of juvenile jail for most of her teenage years. Still, she was among the lucky ones in her neighborhood. She saw more than 20 friends killed by gang violence the summer before her freshman year of high school. Looking for something, anything, Reyes' probation officer enrolled her at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach. It's one of those places that do not show up in the SoCal tourist brochures or maps of movie stars' homes.

Her test scores were also predictable, and she landed in Erin Gruwell's English class full of kids labeled "unteachable." But sometimes, something happens. One moment changes everything.

The Freedom Writers Diary is true. When school started in the fall of 1994, Woodrow Wilson High School's Room 203 became the domain of Erin Gruwell, a first year teacher, young and idealistic. Reyes was one of her "unteachable" students, a mix of African-American, Latino, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Caucasians. They didn't like her, each other or themselves, and they weren't interested in anything Gruwell had to say. They even put down bets on how long she'd last. But Gruwell did something almost no one else had done - she hung in there with them.

One moment changed everything for everyone in the room. Kids were passing around a racial caricature of one of the African-American students. Gruwell came unglued, grabbed it and angrily compared it to the Nazi caricatures of Jews during the Holocaust. She waited for a reaction, but saw only puzzled expressions. These kids had never heard of the Holocaust. She was shocked. She backed up and tried a different approach, asking how many had been shot at. They didn't know much history, but she wanted to understand what they did know about.

Turns out, they knew about violence. Almost all of them had a horror story; some began lifting their shirts to show their scars in a battle-scar show-and-tell. She was shocked, again, and had her paradigm pounded for the second time in minutes. Her life would never be the same, nor would theirs.

She introduced them to "Night" by Elie Wiesel, "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" and "Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo," books about teenagers who rose above the violence and despair. Her students were soon intensely connected to Wiesel, Frank and Filipovic. Each student began keeping an anonymous diary, recording tormenting stories of drug use, physical and mental abuse, and their reactions to Gruwell's unconventional teaching methods.

The moment they named themselves "The Freedom Writers," in honor of the Civil Rights leaders the Freedom Riders, the students transformed from apathy and frustration to a closely knit, motivated family. They wrote and wrote: about gangs, immigration, drugs, violence, abuse, death, anorexia, dyslexia, teenage love, weight issues, divorce, suicide. They wrote about anything, about everything.

The diaries were later compiled and published, becoming a number one New York Times bestseller, "The Freedom Writers Diary."

They raised money so Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family during World War II, could visit them in California. Zlata Filipovic accepted the Freedom Writers' many invitations to Long Beach, and spent five days with them, swapping stories and experiences. In 1997 the Freedom Writers organized "Echoes of the Soul," a fundraising concert to help pay for a trip to Washington, D.C., where they toured the Holocaust Museum and presented their diary to Secretary of Education Richard Riley.

In 1999 they traveled to Europe and visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, the concentration camps in Germany and Poland, and Zlata Filipovic in her native Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Since then, Reyes has traveled across the country speaking to educators, at-risk youth, and community leaders about the power of education and the need to give students a second chance.