When Ken Burns releases a documentary, America watches. This is partly because of his uniquely compelling style, but also partly because his stories are those of America itself: the Civil War, jazz, baseball.
But now some ethnic activists and politicians are decrying Burns's latest project on World War II, The War, as not reflective of America -- and are seeking to impose that judgment. If they get their way, there may be more such spats on the horizon.
Why the ruckus?
Burns's narrative technique relies heavily on individual accounts and The War is no exception. He aims to tell the story of how World War II affected the people of four towns -- Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; and Luverne, Minnesota. Interviews with survivors from those towns are integral to the story and, naturally, the survivors are few in number today.
This is where the politics comes in. Among those survivors are African-Americans and, because of the very special circumstances involved, Japanese-Americans who were unjustly interned. But there are no Hispanics, which has led outraged Latino advocacy groups to pressure Burns to include Hispanics in his documentary.
There are indeed Hispanic stories to tell about the war. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates about 1.8 million Hispanics in the USA in 1940, almost 1.5 percent of the population, of whom only a quarter were foreign-born. Hispanic soldiers received 13 Medals of Honor out of the 435 awarded. Yet the chances of any of them being associated with the communities Burns selected are small. Given Burns's narrative approach, it is not unreasonable that no Hispanic individuals would crop up.
