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diggFighting an inaccurate 'war'
PBS feels pressure
For PBS, The War was hell.
Last month, the Public Broadcasting Service management found itself in a skirmish with Latino advocacy groups over a WWII documentary series by filmmaker Ken Burns that totally left out Hispanic soldiers.
However, now The War - the 14 ½ hour series set to air on PBS beginning Sept. 23 - is shooting additional footage and re-editing a documentary to include the military contributions by Latinos and Native Americans.
"The Latino community has just posted a huge win," said Alex Nogales, head of the National Latino Media Coalition.
The pressure on PBS President Paula Kerger came after a platoon of Hispanic organizations decided historical accuracy overran producer/director Burns' right to artistic vision. The fact that the series launches the same month designated as National Hispanic Heritage Month was another slap in the face of U.S. Latinos, activists said.
The organizations (including the American GI Forum and the NLMC), put together a Defend the Honor Campaign to push PBS to force Burns to re-edit his massive documentary to include the contributions of an estimated 500,000 Hispanic soldiers who risked their lives to help win the war. The work did not mention how Hispanic soldiers - including Silvestre Herrera of Phoenix - have earned 12 Congressional Medals of Honor, more per capita than any other ethnic group.
The two main issues in this debate, Latino leaders say, were historical accuracy and the distribution of a "historical" documentary (and related book) in U.S. schools that would have voided the patriotic and heroic Latino war effort.
The controversy created a political problem for PBS and the series filmmaker. The Latino leaders demanded changes in the high-profile series. PBS and Burns wanted to satisfy a growing viewer segment, without the precedent of a filmmaker forced to alter his vision due to a protest.
PBS also wanted to resolve the issue because one veterans group - GI Forum - called for a boycott of the series and asked Hispanics to consider not contributing to donor-supported PBS programming. Arthur Luera, a Phoenix veteran, says he might have withheld his annual donation if PBS hadn't come up with a solution.
Local PBS stations were worried they would be damaged by the fallout from The War. Beth Vershure, station manager at local PBS affiliate KAET Channel 8, informed LP Journal the station is filming "mini documentaries" to air in conjunction with the Burns series in September that will feature Hispanics. (Other PBS affiliates around the country are producing similar programming including Latinos.)
The station is producing episodes of its Arizona Stories series that will feature American Legion Post 41, which fought segregation laws for Latinos returning from the war, Hispanic "flyboys" (pilots), and a piece about the women (including a Latina) who manned the homefront during WWII. In addition, the weekly Horizontes program will air a segment on discrimination against Latino veterans.
The charge against PBS was led by a former journalist, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez.
She is director of the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project at the University of Texas, Austin. She first began e-mailing Hispanic groups about Burn's slight.
A local theater production, Voices of Valor by playwright James Garcia, which premiered at ASU's Gammage Auditorium last year, was based on stories archived in the oral history project.
Rivas says the Hispanic absence in the Burns' documentary would have pushed the perception that Hispanics were missing in action throughout U.S. history.
The coalition of Latino groups also wanted to hold PBS accountable for the content it airs, she says. PBS worked with Burns for six years; how was it that the network forgot to ask, "Where are the Latinos?"
"Every organization, whether news or entertainment or public, have standards of accuracy they must uphold," Rivas says. "It would be like saying the war in Europe (V-E Day) ended in August instead of May 7, 1945."
