Garza wasn’t the only one disappointed. After Hispanic veterans attended other previews of the documentary, the complaints mounted. It didn’t help that the series is scheduled to air in September, Hispanic Heritage Month. The resulting grass-roots protest grew to include scores of Latino organizations and members of Congress. Their demand: that Burns and PBS, which is airing the documentary, incorporate new material in “The War” that reflects the Hispanic experience. Last week the filmmaker and PBS announced that they would shoot new footage about Latinos and include it at the end of each episode or in the breaks. Splicing in new material would undermine the narrative structure of the documentary, they said. But Burns’s comments—that the new material would be like “an amendment to the Constitution”—rankled many. “I don’t think of the Hispanic community as an amendment to anything,” says Sen. Robert Menendez. “An addendum, in my mind, is not an appropriate response.”
Latino leaders say they will keep up the pressure. Though several Hispanic groups hailed Burns’s proposal as a victory, many continue to demand that the filmmaker re-edit the original documentary. Menendez and Sen. Ken Salazar have called for a meeting with PBS president Paula Kerger. And this Wednesday, a coalition of Latino groups will brief members of Congress as part of a “Hispanic Patriots on the Hill” event. “We owe it not only to those people who died on those battlefields,” says Antonio Gil Morales of the American GI Forum, “but also to the hundreds of thousands of veterans who came home to the same discrimination and segregation that were there when they left.”
Burns has seemed surprised by the uproar. “We have been saddened that some organizations and individuals have been upset,” he said in a statement. But he clarified that “the film was never meant to be a definitive or comprehensive treatment of the subject.” The documentary does feature blacks and Asian-Americans. When Burns and his crew traveled to the four towns in the film, they sought to reach potential profile subjects through historical societies and veterans groups. But, according to a Burns spokesman, no Latinos responded. For its part, PBS has tried “to balance the desire for the inclusion of more content” with the filmmaker’s “artistic vision,” says John Wilson, the head of programming at the network. He insists that the additional material isn’t an afterthought and will become a permanent part of the broadcast, including the DVD set.
Garza says the oral-history project could have furnished plenty of profile candidates. Among the 550 her group has interviewed: William Carrillo, a Los Angeles native who lacked the college degree necessary for the Air Corps cadet program and wrote on his application that he’d attended the “College of Hard Knox.” He ended up slipping through anyway and went on to fly 55 B-17 missions in Europe. He was shot down over Berlin, imprisoned in a POW camp in Poland and was eventually rescued in Munich. “All of these guys had fantastic stories,” says Garza. Perhaps they’ll find their way into a different documentary.
