NOVY SARTIKA PUTRI SARI DEWI

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According to Storti (1999:5) culture could be seen as group of peoples shared
assumptions, values, and beliefs, which then result in characteristic behavior.
At the opening of the movie it stated that in Long Beach, where the movie
took place, it all comes down to what you like, it is all about color. As we can see that
the characters in the movie belong to a segregated community that later on divided
into separate gangs or can be called as ethnic group. Ethnic group in this movie refers
to people the race of African-Americans, Latino, Cambodian, Vietnamese and
Caucasian). From this we can see that there is a huge gap between one ethnic to
another ethnic. Intolerance and lack of understanding between one ethnic and another
ethnic lead to negative perception among them. The negative perception has become
big barrier for them to have interaction in daily life especially in school area.
The tension between one ethnic to another ethnic also felt by Erin Gruwell on
her first day at school. She sees complete segregation was immediately formed based
on their race and ethnic. The students just talk to their ethnic. This caused by the
surrounding environment, which force them to rely on their race and ethnic. They are
ordered to be loyal to their own, but then they are seeing as aggressive towards others.
This can be seen when Evas friend shot one of the man, she chose to keep silent
about the incident and tries to cover it up. This is one of the forms of loyalty towards
their race.
From this we can see that in order to reduce the tension between the ethnic
groups, there have to be the third party, which played its role as mediator or facilitator.
According to the movie, Erin Gruwell played huge role in this movie that reduce the
tension between the ethnics. She tries to mingle and have connection with her students
by find a new method of teaching. Line-Game was one of the game that she
introduce to her students in order to make them share their common feeling. Sharing
the common feeling is one of the most effective ways to reduce the tension which
caused by intolerance. By sharing the common feeling, Erins students know that they
are not the one who have become the victim of racism.
However to defeat the social gap like racism, we have to understand that there
is no greater culture, tradition, or even race above the human fight for freedom and

truth and this belonging can be reached only through the tedious but possible path of
love and unity.