Ken Burn's Little Snicker

Ever since the media began advertising the Ken Burns series on World War II I've been thinking about making a comment on what everybody is calling a monumentous event. Today, when I sat down to watch the Senate for a while, I heard Senator Lamar Alexander make a statement about Latinos complaining that Burns did not include Latino soldiers in the series. Listening to the senator motivated me to write something.

He said that Latinos are wrong in wanting to show their (our) difference. That this country is plurbus unim - many into one. But that this complaint by Latinos was making us one into many. He then talked about how Burns influences the population.

Perhaps this is why it is so important to comment.

By chance I was sitting in front of the tv on Sunday watching ABC's This Week. Stephanopoulus was interviewing Burns. The show was going to air that evening. George S. asked Burns about the controversy surrounding not having minority soldiers represented in the show. What happened next concerned me more than the initial complaint.

Burns snickered a bit, and said that it was settled, that certain groups hadn't understood what was behind the show.

Here lies the question. Does Burns just not like for anyone to critique him? Has his success made him think he is allowed to be disrepectful to people on national tv? The snicker was bad, but the comment about not understanding (which he said with slight sarcasm) actually was worse. Mr. Burns, are Latinos not smart enough to "understand" your project? Was that what you were trying to tell us?

Burns' goal is very clear. He is in agreement with Alexander. They see the United States as "unim" -- one body of people, and they are not people of color. Maybe Burns thought there weren't enough Latinos in World War II to be worth filming. I'm not sure of that. But I do know from scholarly research that WWII was paramount in helping Latinos move towards the middle class. It changed everything.

Secondly, I know Vietnam is another war, but Latinos were 20% of the deaths, while they were only 10% of the population at that time. I would say that would merit some respect.

Its ironic. A book I wrote about Texas is just about to be released. In it I have a chapter titled "The Warrior" - Its about soldiers. One long story in particular is about Ssgt. Macario Garcia, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor during WWII, but wasn't served in a restaurant in Texas when he was discharged.

As I see Burns snicker I think of the men in my family who served in the U.S. military, - great great grandfather, in the Civil War (yes there were Mexicans in the U.S. at that time), my maternal grandfather in WWI, my father, two uncles, and several cousins in WWII.. My Dad was in the Pacific, and his brother was at the Battle of the Buldge. My maternal uncle was in France, another uncle was in north Africa.

There are thousands of other Latino families with the same stories.

Burns has his eyes closed to much of America.

By the way, I dedicated that book to my Dad, because he's a warrior too.