Freedom Writers

About Freedom Writers

Freedom Writers is a 2007 American film starring Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton and Patrick Dempsey. It is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell. The title is a play on both the terms of "Freedom Riders", the black and white civil rights activists who tested the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of interstate buses in 1961, and Freedom Fighters, as in somebody who fights for freedom.

The film opens with footage of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 and introduces Eva (April Lee Hernández), a Latina whose father was wrongly arrested for a drive-by shooting. She is initiated in a gang, and only goes to Wilson High School because her parole officer threatened her with boot camp. The Long Beach high school and its area are the place of a gang war, where hatred and racism abound. Meanwhile, naive first-time teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) gets a job teaching freshman English at Wilson High School. Her first day at school is a shock to her, as she sees a fight almost break out in her classroom and a full scale gang battle at the school. Her students do not obey her and continously talk back to her

One night, Eva and a Cambodian refugee, Sindy (Jaclyn Ngan), find themselves in the same convenience store. Another student, Grant Rice (Armand Jones), is frustrated at losing an arcade game and demands a refund from the owner. When he storms out, Eva's boyfriend attempts a driveby shooting on him, accidentally killing Sindy's boyfriend. As Eva is a witness, she must testify at court; she intends to protect her own kind in her testimony.